THE    IMAGINATION 


AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 


BY 
GEORGE  MACDONALD  LL.  D 

Author  of  "  Warlock  O'  Glenwarlock,"  "  Weighed  anx 
Wanting,"  *'  Annals  of  a  Quiet  Neighbor- 
hood," Etc.  Etc  Etc 


^tSE  UB^ 


Of    THE 


UN 


TY 


BOSTON 
D    LOTHROP     COMPANY 

FRANKLIN  AND   HAWLEY   STREETS 


/!/  s  S3j 


-^  ^  :^6c 


I 


INTRODUCTION. 


I  WAS  first  induced  to  read  George  MacDonald  by 
the  late  Rev.  Dr.  Gannett,  who  said  that  he  had  found 
more  in  him  and  got  more  from  him  than  in  or  from  any 
author  whose  name  belonged  to  the  current  literature 
of  the  day.  This  commendation  on  so  high  and  grave 
authority  led  me  to  make  acquaintance  with  him,  and 
I  can  cordially  second  the  testimony  of  my  venerable 
friend;  yet  not  because  I  underrate  other  men  who 
are  justly  favorites  in  the  reading  world,  but  because 
MacDonald  is  a  class  by  himself,  and  as  such,  holds 
in  his  own  vein,  and  m  minds  receptive  of  his  influence, 
a  sole  place ;  while  on  other  Hnes  of  thought  and  senti- 
ment, attention  and  interest  are  more  or  less  divided  and 
distributed. 

He  is  best  known  by  his  novels,  and  they  furnish 
the  most  genuine  test  of  the  quality  and  strength  of 
his  intellectual  fibre.  As  stories,  they  are  by  no  means 
faultless.  They  often  have  ill-constructed  plots,  awk- 
ward denouements,  unnatural  incidents,  and  impossible 
characters  ;  and  the  conversations,  though  never  dull, 
are  abnormally  prolix,  and  when  the  person  speaking 
can  be  supposed  to  have  a  provincial  dialect,  its  vocab- 
ulary is  aired  to  the  reader's  utter  weariness.  Yet 
with  all  these  drawbacks  MacDonald  clenches  the  heart 
and  soul  of  his  reader  with  an  iron  grasp ;  the  interest, 
strong  at  the  outset,  grows  with  every  chapter;    the 


4  INTBOBUCTION, 

personages  brought  upon  the  stage  seem,  if  not  our 
near  kindred,  at  least  our  next-door  neighbors,  and  we 
part  from  them  as  from  old  acquaintance, —  from  some 
of  them  as  from  very  dear  friends.  Yet  the  power  thus 
exerted,  though  the  story  is  its  vehicle,  is  independent 
of  the  story.  It  is  in  the  man  himself,  and  in  the 
medium  through  which  he  beholds  the  world  and  its 
Creator, —  things  seen  and  things  unseen.  He  is  pre- 
eminently realistic  ;  not  in  the  material,  but  in  the  spirit- 
ual sense  of  the  word.  He  looks  directly  and  always 
into  the  soul  of  things,  and  that  soul  is  to  him  the 
immanent  God. 

The  Divine  omnipresence,  as  a  dogma,  we  all  be- 
lieve; with  him  it  is  more  than  a  belief, —  a  perception, 
a  face-to-face  communion.  We  are  afraid  to  associate 
the  Divine  image  with  paltry  things,  with  every-day 
affairs,  with  trivial  needs,  vexations  and  enjoyments ;  to 
him  the  least  things  seem  great,  because  he  sees  God 
in  them.  In  like  manner  he  brings  us,  as  it  were, 
into  the  interior  presence  of  the  human  beings  that  he 
portrays;  gives  us  the  inmost  physiology  of  emotion, 
purpose,  will,  self-congratulation,  penitence,  remorse ; 
shows  us  his  personages,  not  as  they  look  or  talk  for 
the  eye  or  ear  of  the  outside  world,  but  as  in  lluii 
moments  of  deepest  introspection  they  know  themselves 
to  be.  In  religion,  he  deals  not  with  dogmas  or  their 
verbal  drapery,  but  with  the  actual  relations  of  beings 
which,  in  his  apprehension,  are  not  typified,  but  literally 
described   by  the    terms  of  the   closest  and    tenderest 


INTBOBUCTION.  ft 

human  kindred  as  applied  to  God  and  man,  and  to  man 
and  man.  It  is  in  accordance  with  this  tone  of  repre- 
sentation that  duty,  conscience,  obligation,  sin,  in  fine, 
all  ethical  concepts,  are  treated  not  as  matters  of  formal 
law  and  statute,  but  as  phases  of  the  human  soul  turned 
to  or  averted  from  the  present  God. 

The  same  characteristics  mark  his  sermons  and  relig- 
ious essays,  which  are  a  handling  of  realities,  and  not  of 
their  symbols.  His  words  have  a  transparency  which 
belongs  to  very  few  writers  of  any  age.  One  looks 
through  them,  instead  of  seeing  things  by  means  of 
them.  His  literary  criticisms  have  a  similar  directness 
and  translucency.  They  manifest  keen  insight  rather 
than  appreciation.  He  does  not  look  at  his  author  as 
from  a  distance,  but  rather  for  the  time  assumes  his 
personality,  thinks  and  feels  with  him,  and  almost  in 
him. 

With  these  traits  MacDonald  might  seem  better 
furnished  as  an  essayist  than  as  a  novel-writer,  and  I 
certainly  should  say  so  were  I  not  more  than  delighted 
with  his  novels.  But  as  an  essayist  he  would  have 
won  distinguished  reputation,  had  he  not  eclipsed  him- 
self in  this  department  by  his  eminent  success  in  another. 
I  have  before  me  two  volumes  of  his  essays,  one  on 
The  Miracles  of  our  Lord,  the  other  —  England's  Aniz- 
phon  —  on  English  religious  poetry,  either  of  which 
would  have  given  a  new  writer  a  very  high  place  in 
the  esteem  of  the  best  minds.  In  the  former  of  these 
specially,  are  all  th«  elements  of  thought   and  feeling 


6  INTBOBUCTION, 

which  give  character  to  his  novels, — the  near  approach 
to  sacred  verities,  the  vivid  sense  of  their  reality,  and 
their  familiar  presentation  with  a  loving  tenderness  that 
is  more  than  reverence. 

What  has  been  said  may  in  a  good  measure  describe 
the  book  now  offered  to  the  American  public.  Its  sub- 
jects are  various,  and  they  show  the  several  aspects  o^ 
the  author's  genius;  but  in  all  of  them  the  reader  is 
brought  into  the  closest  relation  with  the  author,  and  he, 
in  a  sense  almost  peculiar  to  him,  literally,  rather  than 
metaphorically,  "enters  into"  his  subject.  But  no  more 
needs  to  be  said  ;  he  can  best  speak  for  himself. 

This  volume  is  a  reprint  of  the  English  edition,  with 
the  exception  of  the  title  of  the  book  and  the  title 
of  the  last  Essay  or  Sermon ;  and  the  less  than  a 
page  of  Preface  in  the  English  edition  is  wholly  taken 
up  in  finding  fault  with  those  two  titles.  The  name  of 
the  book  is  Orts;  but  the  author  says  that  since  it 
was  irrevocably  printed,  he  has  doubted  its  fitness. 
There  can  be  no  reasonable  doubt  of  its  unfitness, 
and  though  not  by  my  advice,  it  is  with  my  hearty 
approval  that  the  author's  better  second  thoughts  have 
been  respected  by  the  American  publishers.  The  last 
Sermon  is  in  the  English  edition  entitled  The  Christian 
Ministering,  which  the  author  says  was  a  mistake  and 
an  oversight,  True  Greatness  being  the  substitute  which 
he  himself  suggests. 

A.  P.  Peabody. 

Cambridge,  March  9,  1883. 


CONTENTS. 


The  Imagination:  its  Functions  and  its  Culture  i 
A  Sketch  of  Individual  Development  ...  43 
St.  George's  Day,  1564  ^  ^JidfU^eAc^  ,  .  77 
The  Art  of  Shakspare,  as  revealed  by  himself      141 

The  elder  Hamlet, 170 

On  Polish i8a 

Browning's  "Christmas  Eve" 195 

"Essays  on  some  of  the  Forms  of  Literature"  .  218 
"The  History  and  Heroes  of  Medicine"       .       .  236 

Wordsworth's  Poetry 245 

Shelley 264 

jA.  Sermon 282 

True  Greatness      ••••••••298 


TjNIVEBSITl 

THE  IMAGINATION. 

ITS  FUNCTIONS  AND    ITS  CULTURE. 


HERE  are  in  whose  notion  education  would 
seem  to  consist  in  the  production  of  a 
certain  repose  through  the  development 
of  this  and  that  faculty,  and  the  de- 
pression, if  not  eradication,  of  this  and  that  other 
faculty.  But  if  mere  repose  were  the  end  in  view,  an 
unsparing  depression  of  all  the  faculties  would  be  the 
surest  means  of  approaching  it,  provided  always  the 
animal  instincts  could  be  depressed  likewise,  or,  better 
still,  kept  in  a  state  of  constant  repletion.  Happily, 
however,  for  the  human  race,  it  possesses  in  the 
passion  of  hunger  even,  a  more  immediate  saviour 
than  in  the  wisest  selection  and  treatment  of  its 
faculties.  For  repose  is  not  the  end  of  education ;  its 
end  is  a  noble  unrest,  an  ever  renewed  awaking  from 
the  dead,  a  ceaseless  questioning  of  the  past  for  the 
interpretation  of  the  future,  an  urging  on  of  the 
motions  of  life,  which  had  better  far  be  accelerated 
into  fever,  than  retarded  into  lethargy. 

By  those  who  consider  a  balanced  repose  the  end 
of  culture,  the  imagination  must  necessarily  be  re- 
>  1867. 


2  THE   IMAGINATION. 

garded  as  the  one  faculty  before  all  others  to  be  sup- 
pressed. "Are  there  not  facts?"  say  they.  "Why 
forsake  them  for  fancies  1  Is  there  not  that  which 
may  be  knovmf  Why  forsake  it  for  inventions? 
What  God  hath  made,  into  that  let  man  inquire." 

We  answer :  To  inquire  into  what  God  has  made 
is  the  main  function  of  the  imagination.  It  is  aroused 
by  facts,  is  nourished  by  facts,  seeks  for  higher  and  yet 
higher  laws  in  those  facts ;  but  refuses  to  regard  science 
as  the  sole  interpreter  of  nature,  or  the  laws  of  science 
as  the  only  region  of  discover}''. 

We  must  begin  with  a  definition  of  the  word 
imagination,  or  rather  some  description  of  the  faculty 
to  which  we  give  the  name. 

The  word  itself  means  an  imaging  or  a  making  of 
likenesses.  The  imagination  is  that  faculty  which 
gives  form  to  thought — not  necessarily  uttered  form, 
but  form  capable  of  being  uttered  in  shape  or  in  sound, 
or  in  any  mode  upon  which  the  senses  can  lay  hold. 
It  is,  therefore,  that  faculty  in  man  which  is  likest  to 
the  prime  operation  of  the  power  of  God,  and  has, 
therefore,  been  called  the  creative  faculty,  and  its 
exercise  creation.  Poet  means  maker.  Wo  must  not 
forget,  however,  that  between  creator  and  poet  lies  the 
one  unpassable  gulf  which  distinguishes — far  be  it 
from  us  to  say  divides — all  that  is  God's  from  all  that 
is  man's ;  a  gulf  teeming  with  infinite  revelations,  but 
a  gulf  over  which  no  man  can  pass  to  find  out  God, 
although  God  needs  not  to  pass  over  it  to  find  man ; 
the  guK  between  that  which  calls,  and  that  which 
is  thus  called  into  being ;  between  that  which  makes  in 


THE    IMAGIXATION.  'S 

its  own  image  and  that  which  is  made  in  that  image. 
It  is  better  to  keep  the  word  creation  for  that  calling 
out  of  nothing  which  is  the  imagination  of  God  ;  except 
it  be  as  an  occasional  symbolic  expression,  whose  daring 
is  fully  recognized,  of  the  likeness  of  man's  work  to 
the  work  of  his  maker.  The  necessary  unlikeness 
between  the  creator  and  the  created  holds  within  it  the 
equally  necessary  likeness  of  the  thing  made  to  him 
who  makes  it,  and  so  of  the  work  of  the  made  to  the 
work  of  the  maker.  When  therefore,  refusing  to  em- 
ploy the  word  creation  of  the  work  of  man,  we  yet  use 
the  word  imagination  of  the  work  of  God,  we  cannot 
be  said  to  dare  at  all  It  is  only  to  give  the  name  of 
man's  faculty  to  that  power  after  which  and  by  which 
it  was  fashioned.  The  imagination  of  man  is  made  in 
the  image  of  the  imagination  of  God.  Everything  of 
man  must  have  been  of  God  first ;  and  it  will  help 
much  towards  our  understanding  of  the  imagination 
and  its  functions  in  man  if  we  first  succeed  in  regarding 
aright  the  imagination  of  God,  in  which  the  imagina- 
tion of  man  lives  and  moves  and  has  its  being. 

As  to  what  thought  is  in  the  mind  of  God  ere  it 
takes  form,  or  what  the  form  is  to  him  ere  he  utters  it ; 
in  a  word,  what  the  consciousness  of  God  is  in  either 
case,  all  we  can  say  is,  that  our  consciousness  in 
the  resembling  conditions  must,  afar  off,  resemble  his. 
But  when  we  come  to  consider  the  acts  embodying  the 
Divine  thought  (if  indeed  thought  and  act  be  not  with 
him  one  and  the  same),  then  we  enter  a  region  of  large 
difference.  We  discover  at  once,  for  instance,  that 
wheie  a  man  would  make  a  machine,  or  a  picture,  or  • 
B  2 


4  THE  IMAGINATION. 

book,  God  makes  the  man  that  makes  the  book,  or  the 
picture,  or  the  machine.  Would  God  give  us  a  drama  1 
He  makes  a  Shakespere.  Or  would  he  construct  a 
drama  more  immediately  his  own  1  He  begins  with 
the  building  of  the  stage  itself,  and  that  stage  is  a  ^ 
world — a  universe  of  worlds.  He  makes  the  actors,  and 
they  do  not  act, — they  are  their  part.  He  utters  them 
into  the  visible  to  work  out  their  life — his  drama. 
When  he  would  have  an  epic,  he  sends  a  thinking  hero 
into  his  drama,  and  the  epic  is  the  soliloquy  of  his 
Hamlet.  Instead  of  writing  his  lyrics,  he  sets  his  birds 
and  his  maidens  a- singing.  All  the  processes  of  the  . 
ages  are  God's  science ;  all  the  flow  of  history  is  his 
poetry.  His  sculpture  is  not  in  marble,  but  in  living 
and  speech-giving  forms,  which  pass  away,  not  to  yield 
place  to  those  that  come  after,  but  to  be  perfected  in  a 
nobler  studio.  What  he  has  done  remains,  although  it 
vanishes;  and  he  never  either  forgets  what  he  has 
once  done,  or  does  it  even  once  again.  As  the  thoughts 
move  in  the  mind  of  a  man,  so  move,  the  worlds  of 
men  and  women  in  the  mind  of  God,  and  make  no 
confusion  there,  for  there  they  had  their  birth,  the 
offspring  of  his  imagination.  Man  is  but  a  thought  of ) 
God. 

If  we  now  consider  the  so-called  creative  faculty  in 
man,  we  shall  find  that  in  no  primary  sense  is  this 
faculty  creative.  Indeed,  a  man  is  rather  being  thought . 
than  th  inking t  when  a  new  thought  arises  in  his  mind. 
He  kaew  it  not  till  he  found  it  there,  therefore  he 
could  not  even  have  sent  for  it  He  did  not  create  it, 
else  how  could  it  be  the  surprise  that  it  was  when  it 


THE    IMAGINATION.  0 

arose  ?  He  may,  indeed,  in  rare  instances  foresee  that 
something  is  coining,  and  make  ready  the  place  for  its 
hirth  ;  but  that  is  the  utmost  relation  of  consciousness 
and  will  he  can  hear  to  the  dawning  idea.  -  Leaving 
this  aside,  however,  and  turning  to  the  embodiment  or 
revelation  of  thought,  we  shall  find  that  a  man  no  more 
creates  the  forms  by  which  he  would  reveal  his  thoughts, 
tlian  he  creates  those  thoughts  themselves. 

For  what  are  the  forms  by  means  of  which  a  man 
may  reveal  his  thoughts]  Are  they  not  those  of 
nature?  But  although  he  is  created  in  the  closest 
sympathy  with  these  forms,  yet  even  these  forms  are 
not  born  in  bis  mind.  What  springs  there  is  the  per- 
ception that  this  or  that  form  is  already  an  expression 
of  this  or  that  phase  of  thought  or  of  feeling.  For  the 
world  around  him  is  an  outward  figuration  of  the  con- 
dition of  his  mind ;  an  inexhaustible  storehouse  oi 
forms  whence  he  may  choose  exponents — the  crystal 
pitchers  that  shall  protect  his  thought  and  not  need  to 
be  broken  that  the  light  may  break  forth.  The  mean- 
ings are  in  those  forms  already,  else  they  could  be  no 
garment  of  unveiling.  God  has  made  the  world  that 
it  should  thus  serve  his  creature,  developing  in  the 
service  that  imagination  whose  necessity  it  meets. 
The  man  has  but  to  light  the  lamp  within  the  form  : 
his  imagination  is  the  light,  it  is  not  the  form. 
Straightway  the  shining  thought  makes  the  form 
visible,  and  becomes  itself  visible  through  the  form.' 

'  We  would  not  be  understood  to  say  that  the  man  works 
consciously  even  in  this.  Oftentimes,  if  not  always,  the 
vision  arises  in  the  mind,  thought  and  form  together. 


O  THE    IMAGI2fAT10N. 

In  illustration  of  what  we  mean,  take  a  passage  from 
the  poet  Shelley. 

In  Ms  poem  Adonais,  written  upon  the  death  of 
Keats,  representing  death  as  the  revealer  of  secrets,  he 
says : — 

"  The  one  remains  j  tte  many  change  and  pass  | 

Heaven's  light  for  ever  shines;  earth's  shadows  flyf 
Life,  like  a  dome  of  many  coloured  glass, 
Stains  the  white  radiance  of  eternity. 
Until  death  tramples  it  to  fragments.*' 

This  is  a  new  embodiment,  certainly,  whence  he  who 
gains  not,  for  the  moment  at  least,  a  loftier  feeling  of 
death,  must  be  dull  either  of  heart  or  of  understanding. 
But  has  Shelley  created  this  figure,  or  only  put  together 
its  parts  according  to  the  harmony  of  truths  already 
embodied  in  each  of  the  parts  ]  For  first  he  takes  the 
inventions  of  his  fellow-men,  in  glass,  in  colour,  in 
dome:  with  these  he  represents  life  as  finite  though 
elevated,  and  as  an  analysis  although  a  lovely  one. 
Next  he  presents  eternity  as  the  dome  of  the  sky  above 
this  dome  of  coloured  glass — the  sky  having  ever  been 
regarded  as  the  true  symbol  of  eternity.  This  portion 
of  the  figure  he  enriches  by  the  attribution  of  white- 
ness, or  unity  and  radiance.  And  last,  he  shows  us 
Death  as  the  destroying  revealer,  walking  aloft  through 
the  upper  region,  treading  out  this  life-bubble  of 
colours,  that  the  man  may  look  beyond  it  and  behold 
the  true,  the  un  coloured,  the  all-coloured. 

But  although  the  human  imagination  has  no  choice 
but  to  make  use  of  the  forms  already  prepared  for  it. 


THE    IMAirlXATlOK.  7 

its  operation  is  the  same  as  that  of  the  divine  inasmuch 
as  it  does  put  thought  into  form.  And  if  it  be  to  man 
what  creation  is  to  God,  we  must  expect  to  find  it 
operative  in  every  sphere  of  human  activity.  Such  is, 
indeed,  the  fact,  and  that  to  a  far  greater  extent  than 
is  commonly  supposed. 

The  sovereignty  of  the  imagination,  for  instance, 
over  the  region  of  poetry  will  hardly,  in  the  present 
day  at  least,  be  questioned  ;  but  not  every  one  is  pre- 
pared to  be  told  that  the  imagination  has  had  nearly 
as  much  to  do  with  the  making  of  our  language  as  with 
"  Macbeth  "  or  the  "  Paradise  Lost."  The  half  of  our 
language  is  the  work  of  the  imagination. 

For  how  shall  two  agree  together  what  name  they 
shall  give  to  a  thought  or  a  feeling  How  shall  the 
one  show  the  other  that  which  is  invisible  ?  True,  he 
can  unveil  the  mind's  construction  in  the  face — that 
living  eternally  changeful  symbol  which  God  has  hung 
in  front  of  the  unseen  spirit— but  that  without  words 
reaches  only  to  the  expression  of  present  feeling.  To 
attempt  to  employ  it  alone  for  the  conveyance  of  the 
intellectual  or  the  historical  would  constantly  mislead  ; 
while  the  expression  of  feeling  itself  would  be  misinter- 
preted, especially  with  regard  to  cause  and  object :  the 
dumb  show  would  be  worse  than  dumb. 

But  let  a  man  become  aware  of  some  new  movement 
within  him.  Loneliness  comes  with  it,  for  he  would 
share  his  mind  with  his  fiiend,  and  he  cannot ;  he  is 
shut  up  in  speechlessness.     Thus 

He  may  live  a  man  forbid 

Weary  sevennights  nine  times  niBe, 


8  THE  IMAGINATION. 

or  the  first  raoment  of  his  perplexity  may  be  that  oi 
.his  release.  GaziDg  about  him  in  pain,  he  suddenly 
beholds  the  material  form  of  his  immaterial  condition. 
There  stands  his  thought !  God  thought  it  before  him, 
and  put  its  picture  there  ready  for  him  when  he  wanted 
if..  Or,  to  express  the  thing  more  prosaically,  the  man 
cannot  look  around  him  long  without  perceiving,  some 
form,  aspect,  or  movement  of  nature,  some  relation 
between  its  forms,  or  betweeft  such  and  himself  which 
resembles  the  state  or  motion  within  him.  This  he 
seizes  as  the  symbol,  as  the  garment  or  body  of  his 
invisible  thought,  presents  it  to  his  friend,  and  his 
friend  understands  him.  Every  word  so  employed 
with  a  new  meaning  is  henceforth,  in  its  new  character, 
born  of  the  spirit  and  not  of  the  flesh,  born  of  the 
imagination  and  not  of  the  understanding,  and  is 
henceforth  submitted  to  new  laws  of  growth  and 
modification. 

*^  Thinkest  thou,"  says  Carlyle  in  "  Past  and  Present,*' 
"there  were  no  poets  till  Dan  Chaucer?  No  heart 
burning  with  a  thought  which  it  could  not  hold,  and 
had  no  word  for ;  and  needed  to  shape  and  coin  a  word 
for — ^what  thou  callest  a  metaphor,  trope,  or  the  like  t 
For  every  word  we  have  there  was  such  a  man  and 
poet  The  coldest  word  was  once  a  glowing  new 
metaphor  and  bold  questionable  originality.  Thy  very 
ATTENTION,  does  it  not  mean  an  attentio,  a  stretching- 
TO  ?  Fancy  that  act  of  the  mind,  which  all  were  con- 
scious of,  which  none  had  yet  named, — when  this  new 
poet  first  felt  bound  and  driven  to  name  it.  His 
questionable  originality  and  new  glowing  metaphor  was 


THE    IMAGINATION.  9 

found  adoptable,  intelligible,  and  remains  our  name  for 
it  to  this  day.'' 

All  words,  then,  belonging  to  the  inner  world  of  the 
mind,  are  of  the  imagination,  are  originally  poetic 
words.  ■  The  better,  however,  any  such  word  is  fitted 
for  the  needs  of  humanity,  the  sooner  it  loses  its  poetic 
aspect  by  commonness  of  use.  It  ceases  to  be  heard  as 
a  symbol,  and  appears  only  as  a  sign.  Thus  thousands 
of  words  which  were  originally  poetic  words  owing 
their  existence  to  the  imagination,  lose  their  vitality, 
and  liarden  into  mummies  of  prose.  Not  merely  in 
literature  does  poetry  come  first,  and  prose  afterwards, 
but  poetry  is  the  source  of  all  the  language  that  belongs 
to  the  inner  world,  whether  it  be  of  passion  or  of 
metaphysics,  of  psychology  or  of  aspiration.  No  poetry 
comes  by  the  elevation  of  prose ;  but  the  half  of  prose 
comes  by  the  "  massing  into  the  common  clay  "  of  thou- 
sands of  winged  words,  whence,  like  the  lovely  shells 
of  by-gone  ages,  one  is  occasionally  disinterred  by  some 
lover  of  speech,  and  held  up  to  the  light  to  show  the 
play  of  colour  in  its  manifold  laminations. 

For  the  world  is — allow  us  the  homely  figure — the 
hiunan  being  turned  inside  out.  All  that  moves  in  the 
mind  is  symbolized  in  Nature,.  Or,  to  use  another 
more  philosophical,  and  certawly  not  less  poetic  figure, 
the  world  is  a  sensuous  analysis  of  humanity,  and  hence 
an  inexhaustible  wardrobe  for  the  clothing  of  human 
thought.  Take  any  word  expressive  of  emotion — take 
the  word  emotion  itself — and  you  -svill  fiind  that  its 
primary  meaning  is  of  the  outer  world.  In  the  sway- 
ing of  the  woods,  in  the  unrest  of  the  "  wavy  plain,** 


10  THE   IMAGINATION. 

the  imagination  saw  the  picture  of  a  well-known  coirdi- 
tion  of  the  human  mind  ;  and  hence  the  word  emotion.* 
But  while  the  imagination  of  man  has  thus  the  divine 
function  of  putting  thought  into  form,  it  has  a  duty 
altogether  human,  which  is  paramount  to  that  function 
—  the  duty,  namely,  which  springs  from  his  immediate 
relation  to  the  Father,  that  of  following  and  finding 
,  out  the  divine  imagination  in  whose  image  it  was  made. 
To  do  this,  the  man  must  watch  its  signs,  its  manifes- 
tations. He  must  contemplate  what  the  Hehrew  poets 
call  the  works  of  His  hands. 

"  But  to  follow  those  is  the  province  of  the  intellect, 
not  of  the  imagination." — We  will  leave  out  of  the  ques- 
tion at  present  that  poetic  interpretation  of  the  works 
of  Nature  with  which  the  intellect  has  almost  nothing, 
and  the  imagination  almost  everything,  to  do.  It  is 
unnecessary  to  insist  that  the  higher  heing  of  a  flower 
even  is  dependent  for  its  reception  upon  the  human 
imagination  ;  that  science  may  pull  the  snowdrop  to 
shreds,  but  cannot  find  out  the  idea  of  suffering  hope 
and  pale  confident  submission,  for  the  sake  of  which 
that  darling  of  the  spring  looks  out  of  heaven,  namely, 
God's  heart,  upon  us  his  wiser  and  more  sinful  chil- 
dren ;  for  if  there  be  any  truth  in  this  region  of  things 
acknowledged  at  all,  it  will  be  at  the  same  time 
acknowledged  that  that  region  belongs  to  the  imagina- 

s  This  passage  contains  only  a  repetition  of  what  is  fax 
better  said  in  the  preceding  extract  from  Oarlyle,  but  it  waa 
written  before  we  had  read  (if  reviewers  may  be  allowed  to 
confess  sach  ignorance)  the  book  from  which  that  extract  is 
taken. 


THE    IMAGINATION.  11 

tioiL  We  confine  ourselves  to  that  questioning  of  tlie 
works  of  God  which  is  called  the  province  of  science. 

"Shall,  then,  the  human  intellect,"  we  ask,  "come 
into  readier  contact  with  the  divine  imagination  than 
that  human  imagination  1 "  The  work  of  the  Higher 
must  be  discovered  by  the  search  of  the  Lower  in 
degree  which  is  yet  similar  in  kind.  Let  us  not  be 
supposed  to  exclude  the  intellect  from  a  share  in  every 
highest  office.  Man  is  not  divided  when  the  manifes- 
tations of  his  life  are  distinguished.  The  intellect  "  is 
all  in  every  part."  There  were  no  imagination  with- 
out intellect,  however  much  it  may  appear  that  intel- 
lect can  exist  without  imagination.  What  we  mean 
to  insist  upon  is,  that  in  finding  out  the  works  of  God, 
the  Intellect  must  labour,  workman-like,  under  the 
direction  of  the  architect,  Imagination.  Herein,  too, 
"we  proceed  in  the  hope  to  show  how  much  more  than 
is  commonly  supposed  the  imagination  has  to  do  with 
human  endeavour ;  how  large  a  share  it  has  in  the 
work  that  is  done  under  the  sun. 

"  But  how  can  the  imagination  have  anything  to  do 
with  science?  That  region,  at  least,  is  governed  by 
fixed  laws." 

"  True,"  we  answer.  "  But  how  much  do  we  know 
of  these  laws  1  How  much  of  science  already  belongs  to 
the  region  of  the  ascertained — in  other  words,  has  been 
conquered  by  the  intellect  1  We  will  not  now  dispute 
your  vindication  of  the  ascertained  from  the  intrusion 
of  the  imagination;  but  we  do  claim  for  it  all  the  undis- 
covered, all  the  unexplored."  "Ah,  well !  There  it  can 
do  little  harm.    There  let  it  run  riot  if  you  will.    "  "No,** 


12  THE    IMAGINATION. 

we  reply.  "  Licence  is  not  what  we  claim  when  we 
assert  the  duty  of  the  imagination  to  be  that  of  follow- 
ing and  finding  out  the  work  that  God  maketh.  Her 
part  is  to  understand  God  ere  she  attempts  to  utter 
man.  Where  is  the  room  for  being  fanciful  or  riotous 
here  1  It  is  only  the  ill-bred,  that  is,  the  uncultivated 
imagination  that  will  amuse  itself  where  it  ought  to 
worship  and  work." 

"But  the  facts  of  l^ature  are  to  be  discovered  only 
l)y  observation  and  experiment."  True.  But  how 
does  the  man  of  science  come  to  think  of  his  experi- 
ments 1  Does  observation  reach  to  the  non-present,  the 
possible,  the  yet  unconceived  1  Even  if  it  showed  you 
the  experiments  which  oi/ght  to  be  made,  will  observation 
reveal  to  you  the  experiments  which  might  be  made  1 
And  who  can  tell  of  which  kind  is  the  one  that  carries 
in  its  bosom  the  secret  of  the  law  you  seek  ?  We  yield 
you  your  facts.  The  laws  we  claim  for  the  prophetic 
imagination.  "  He  hath  set  the  world  in  man's 
heart,"  not  in  his  understanding.  And  the  heart  must 
open  the  door  to  the  understanding.  It  is  the  far- 
seeing  imagination  which  beholds  what  might  be  a 
form  of  things,  and  says  to  the  intellect :  "  Try  whether 
that  may  not  be  the  form  of  these  things ;"  which 
beholds  or  invents  a  harmonious  relation  of  parts  and 
operations,  and  sends  the  intellect  to  find  out  whether 
tliat  be  not  the  harmonious  relation  of  them — that  is, 
the  law  of  the  phenomenon  it  contemplates.  Nay,  the 
poetic  relations  themselves  in  the  phenomenon  may 
suggest  to  the  imagination  the  law  that  rules  its  scien- 
tific life.  Yea,  more  than  this :  we  dare  to  claim  for 
the  true,  childlike,  humble  imagination,  such  an  inwaid 


THE    IMAGINATION.  13 

oneness  with  the  laws  of  the  universe  that  it  possesses 
in  itself  an  insight  into  the  very  nature  of  things. 

Lord  Bacon  tells  us  that  a  prudent  question  is  the 
half  of  knowledge.  Whence  comes  this  prudent 
question?  we  repeat.  And  we  answer,  From  the 
imagination.  It  is  the  imagination  that  suggests  in 
what  direction  to  make  the  new  inquiry — which, 
should  it  cast  no  immediate  light  on  the  answer  sought, 
can  yet  hardly  fail  to  be  a  step  towards  final  discovery. 
Every  experiment  has  its  origin  in  hypothesis ;  with- 
out the  scaffolding  of  hypothesis,  the  house  of  science 
could  never  arise.  And  the  construction  of  any  hypo- 
thesis whatever  is  the  work  of  the  imagination.  The 
man  who  cannot  invent  will  never  discover.  The 
imagination  often  gets  a  glimpse  of  the  law  itself  long 
before  it  is  or  can  be  ascertained  to  be  a  law.* 

♦  This  paper  was  already  written  wben,  happening  to 
mention  the  present  subject  to  a  mathematical  friend,  a 
lecturer  at  one  of  the  universities,  he  gave  us  a  corroborative 
instance.  He  had  lately  guessed  that  a  certain  algebraic 
process  could  be  shortened  exceedingly  if  the  method  which 
his  imagination  suggested  should  prove  to  be  a  true  one — that 
is,  an  algebraic  law.  He  put  it  to  the  test  of  experiment  — 
committed  the  verification,  that  is,  into  the  hands  of  his 
intellect — and  found  the  method  true.  It  has  since  been 
accepted  by  the  Royal  Society. 

Noteworthy  illustration  we  have  lately  found  in  the  record 
of  the  experiences  of  an  Edinburgh  detective,  an  Irishman  of 
the  name  of  McLevy.  That  the  service  of  the  imagination  in 
the  solution  of  the  problems  peculiar  to  his  calling  is  well 
known  to  him,  we  could  adduce  many  proofs.  He  recognizes 
its  function  in  the  construction  of  the  theory  which  shall  unite 
this  and  that  hint  into  an  organic  whole,  and  he  expressly  seta 
forth  the  need  of  a  theory  before  facts  can  be  serviceable: — 

*♦  I  would  wait  for  my  *  idea.'  ...   I  never  did  any  good 


14  THE    IMAGINATION. 

The  region  belonging  to  the  pure  intellect  is 
straitened :  the  imagination  labours  to  extend  its 
territories,  to  give  it  room.  She  sweeps  across  the 
borders,  searching  out  new  lands  into  which  she  may 
guide  her  plodding  brother.  The  imagination  is  the 
light  which  redeems  from  the  darkness  for  the  eyes  of 
the  understanding.  Novalis  says,  "  The  imagination 
is  the  stuff  of  the  intellect " — affords,  that  is,  the 
material  upon  which  the  intellect  works.  And  Bacon, 
in  his  "  Advancement  of  Learning,"  fully  recognizes 
this  its  office,  corresponding  to  the  foresight  of  God  in 
this,  that  it  beholds  afar  off.  And  he  says  :  "  Imagi- 
nation is  much  akin  to  miracle-working  faith."* 

In  the  scientific  region  of  her  duty  of  which  we 
speak,  the  Imagination  cannot  have  her  perfect  work  ; 
this  belongs  to  another  and  higher  sphere  than  that 
of  intellectual  truth — that,  namely,  of  full-globed 
humanity,  operating  in  which  she  gives  birth  to  poetry 

without  mine.  .  .  .  Chance  never  smiled  on  mo  unless  I  poked 
her  some  way  ;  so  that  my  '  notion,'  after  all,  has  been  in  the 
getting  of  it  my  own  work  only  perfected  by  a  higher  hand." 
"  On  leaving  the  shop  I  went  direct  to  Prince's  Street, — of 
course  with  an  idea  in  my  mind ;  and  somehow  I  have  always 
been  contented  with  one  idea  when  I  could  not  get  another; 
and  the  advantage  of  sticking  by  one  is,  that  the  other  don't 
jostle  it  and  turn  you  about  in  a  circle  when  you  should  go  in 
a  straight  line."  * 

*  We  are  sorry  we  cannot  verify  this  quotation,  for  which 
we  are  indebted  to  Mr.  Oldbuck  the  Antiquary,  in  the  novel  of 
that  ilk  There  is,  however,  little  room  for  doubt  that  it  is 
Bufficiently  correct. 

*  Since  quoting  the  above  I  have  learned  that  the  book 
referred  to  is  unworthy  of  confidence.  But  let  it  stand  aa 
lUastrntion  where  it  cannot  be  proof. 


THE    IMAGIXATION.  15 

— truth  in  beauty.  But  her  function  in  the  complete 
sphere  of  our  nature,  will,  at  the  same  time,  influence 
her  more  limited  operation  in  the  sections  that  belong 
to  science.  Coleridge  says  that  no  one  but  a  poet  will 
make  any  further  great  discoveries  in  mathematics ; 
and  Bacon  says  that  "  wonder,"  that  faculty  of  the 
mind  especially  attendant  on  the  child-like  imagination, 
"  is  the  seed  of  knowledge."  The  influence  of  the 
poetic  upon  the  scientific  imagination  is,  for  instance, 
especially  present  in  the  construction  of  an  invisible 
whole  from  the  hints  afi'orded  by  a  visible  part ;  where 
tlie  needs  of  the  part,  its  uselessness,  its  broken  rela- 
tions, are  the  only  guides  to  a  multiplex  harmony, 
completeness,  and  end,  which  is  the  whole.  From  a 
little  bone,  worn  with  ages  of  death,  older  than  the 
man  can  think,  his  scientific  imagination  dashed  with 
the  poetic,  calls  up  the  form,  size,  habits,  periods, 
belonging  to  an  animal  never  beheld  by  human  eyes, 
even  to  the  mingling  contrasts  of  scales  and  wings,  of 
feathers  and  hair.  Through  the  combined  lenses  of 
science  and  imagination,  we  look  back  into  ancient 
times,  so  dreadful  in  their  incompleteness,  that  it  may 
well  have  been  the  task  of  seraphic  faith,  as  well  as  of 
cherubic  imagination,  to  behold  in  the  wallowing 
monstrosities  of  the  terror-teeming  earth,  the  prospec- 
tive, quiet,  age-long  labour  of  God  preparing  the 
world  with  all  its  humble,  graceful  service  for  his 
unborn  Man.  The  imagination  of  the  poet,  on  the 
other  hand,  dashed  with  the  imagination  of  the  man 
of  science,  revealed  to  Goethe  the  prophecy  of  the 
flower  in  the  leaf.  No  other  than  an  artistic  imagina- 
tion, however,  fulfilled  of  science,  could  have  attained 


16  THE    IMAGINATION. 

to  the  discovery  of  the  fact  that  the  leaf  is  the  imper- 
feet  flower. 

When  we  turn  to  history,  however,  we  find  probably 
the  greatest  operative  sphere  of  the  intellectuo-coii- 
structive  imagination.  To  discover  its  laws ;  the 
cycles  in  which  events  return,  with  the  reasons  of  their 
return,  recognizing  them  notwithstanding  metamor- 
phosis ;  to  perceive  the  vital  motions  of  this  spiritual 
body  of  mankind ;  to  learn  from  its  facts  the  rule  of 
God ;  to  construct  from  a  succession  of  broken  indica- 
tions a  whole  accordant  with  human  nature  ;  to  approach 
a  scheme  of  the  forces  at  work,  the  passions  over- 
whelming or  upheaving,  the  aspirations  securely 
upraising,  the  selfishnesses  debasing  and  crumbling, 
with  the  vital  interworking  of  the  whole  ;  to  illuminate 
all  from  the  analogy  with  individual  life,  and  from  the 
predominant  phase^  of  individual  character  which  are 
taken  as  the  mind  of  the  people — this  is  the  province 
of  the  imagination.  Without  her  influence  no  process 
of  recording  events  can  develop  into  a  history.  As 
truly  might  that  be  called  the  description  of  a  volcano 
which  occupied  itself  with  a  delineation  of  the  shapes 
assumed  by  the  smoke  expelled  from  the  mountain's 
burning  bosom.  What  history  becomes  under  the 
full  sway  of  the  imagination  may  be  seen  in  the 
"  History  of  the  French  Eevolution,"  by  Thomas 
Carlyle,  at  once  a  true  picture,  a  philosophical  revela- 
tion, a  noble  poem. 

There  is  a  wonderful  passage  about  Time  in  Shakc^- 
Bpere's  "  Eape  of  Lucrece,"  which  shows  how  he 
understood   history.     The    passage    is    really    about 


THE    IMAGINATION.  17 

history,  and  not  about  time  ;  for  time  itself  does 
nothing — not  even  "  blot  old  books  and  alter  their 
contents."  It  is  the  forces  at  work  in  time  that 
produce  all  the  changes ;  and  they  are  history.  We 
quote  for  the  sake  of  one  line  chiefly,  but  the  whole 
stanza  is  pertinent. 

"  Time's  glory  is  to  calm  contending  kings, 
To  unmask  falsehood,  and  bring  truth  to  light. 
To  stamp  the  seal  of  time  in  aged  things. 
To  wake  the  morn  and  sentinel  the  night, 
To  wrong  the  wronger  till  he  render  right ; 
To  ruinate  proud  buildings  with  thy  hours, 
And  smear  with  dust  their  glittering  golden  towers." 

To  wrong  the  wronger  till  he  render  right.  Here  is 
a  historical  cycle  worthy  of  the  imagination  of  Shake- 
spere,  yea,  worthy  of  the  creative  imagination  of  our 
God — the  God  who  made  the  Shakespere  with  the 
imagination,  as  well  as  evolved  the  history  from  the 
laws  which  that  imagination  followed  and  found  out. 

In  full  instance  we  would  refer  our  readers  to 
Shakespere's  historical  plays  ;  and,  as  a  side -illustration, 
to  the  fact  that  he  repeatedly  represents  his  greatest 
characters,  when  at  the  point  of  death,  as  relieving 
their  overcharged  minds  by  prophecy.  Such  prophecy 
is  the  result  of  the  light  of  imagination,  cleared  of  all 
distorting  dimness  by  the  vanishing  of  earthly  hopes 
and  desires,  cast  upon  the  facts  of  experience.  Such  pro- 
phecy is  the  perfect  working  of  the  historical  imagination. 

In  the  interpretation  of  individual  life,  the  same 
principles  hold ;  and  nowhere  can  the  imaginatioji  be 
more   healthily   and    rewardingly   occupied   than   in 

Q 


18  THE    IMAGINATION. 

endeavouring  to  construct  the  life  of  an  individual  out 
of  the  fragments  which  are  all  that  can  reach  us  of  the 
history  of  even  the  noblest  of  our  race.  How  this 
will  apply  to  the  reading  of  the  gospel  story  we  leave 
to  the  earnest  thought  of  our  readers. 

We  now  pass  to  one  more  sphere  in  which  the  student 
imagination  works  in  glad  freedom— the  sphere  which 
is  understood  to  belong  more  immediately  to  the  poet. 

We  have  already  said  that  the  forms  of  Nature  (by 
which  vfoid  forms  we  mean  any  of  those  conditions  of 
Nature  which  affect  the  senses  of  man)  are  so  many 
approximate  representations  of  the  mental  conditions 
of  humanity.  The  outward,  commonly  called  the 
material,  is  informed  by,  or  has  form  in  virtue  of,  the 
inward  or  immaterial — in  a  word,  the  thought.  The 
forms  of  Nature  are  the  representations  of  human 
thought  in  virtue  of  their  being  the  embodiment  of 
God's  thought.  As  such,  therefore,  they  can  be  read 
and  used  to  any  depth,  shallow  or  profound.  Men  of 
all  ages  and  all  developments  have  discovered  in  them 
the  means  of  expression ;  and  the  men  of  ages  to 
come,  before  us  in  every  path  along  which  we  are  now 
striving,  must  likewise  find  such  means  in  those  forms, 
unfolding  with  their  unfolding  necessities.  The  man, 
then,  who,  in  harmony  with  nature,  attempts  the 
discovery  of  more  of  her  meanings,  is  just  searching 
out  the  things  of  God.  The  deepest  of  these  are  far 
too  simple  for  us  to  understand  as  yet.  But  let  our 
imagination  interpretive  reveal  to  us  one  severed 
significance  of  one  of  her  parts,  and  such  is  the  har- 
mony of  the  whole,  that  all  the  realm  of  Nature  is  opeo 


THE    IMAGIXATIOX.  19 

to  US  henceforth — not  without  labour — and  in  time. 
Upon  the  man  who  can  understand  the  human  mean- 
ing of  the  snowdrop,  of  the  primrose,  or  of  the  daisy, 
the  life  of  the  earth  blossoming  into  the  cosmical 
flower  of  a  perfect  moment  will  one  day  seize,  possess- 
ing him  with  its  prophetic  hope,  arousing  his  conscience 
with  the  vision  of  the  "rest  that  remaineth,"  and 
stirring  up  the  aspiration  to  enter  into  that  rest : 

"  Thine  is  the  tranquil  hour,  purpureal  Eve  I 
But  long  as  godlike  wish,  or  hope  divine, 
Informs  my  spirit,  ne'er  can  I  believe 
That  this  magnificence  is  wholly  thine! 
— From  worlds  not  quickened  by  the  sun 
A  portion  of  the  gift  is  won ; 
An  intermingling  of  Heaven's  pomp  is  spread 
On  ground  which  British  shepherds  tread  !  * 

Even  the  careless  curve  of  a  frozen  cloud  across  the  blue 
will  calm  some  troubled  thoughts,  may  slay  some  selfish 
thoughts.  And  what  shall  be  said  of  such  gorgeous 
shows  as  the  scarlet  poppies  in  the  green  corn,  the 
likest  we  have  to  those  lilies  of  the  field  which  spoke 
to  the  Saviour  himself  of  the  care  of  God,  and  rejoiced 
His  eyes  wth  the  glory  of  their  God-devised  array? 
From  such  visions  as  these  the  imagination  reaps  the 
best  fruits  of  the  earth,  for  the  sake  of  which  all  the 
science  involved  ia  its  construction,  is  the  inferior,  yet 
willing  and  beautiful  support. 

From  what  we  have  now  advanced,  will  it  not  then 

appear  that,  on  the   whole,  the  name  given  by  our 

Norman  ancestors  is   more  fitting  for  the  man   who 

moves  in  these  regions  than  the  name  given  by  the 

0  2 


20  ~  THE    IMAGINATION. 

Greeks?  Is  not  the  Poet,  the  Maker,  a  less  suitahle 
name  for  him  than  the  Trouvere,  the  Finder?  At 
least,  must  not  the  faculty  that  finds  precede  the 
faculty  that  utters  1 

But  is  there  nothing  to  be  said  of  the  function  of  the 
imagination  from  the  Greek  side  of  the  question? 
Does  it  possess  no  creative  faculty  ?  Has  it  no  ori- 
ginating power  1 

Certainly  it  would  be  a  poor  description  of  the 
Imagination  which  omitted  the  one  element  especially 
present  to  the  mind  that  invented  the  word  Poet. — It 
can  present  us  with  new  thought-forms — new,  that  is, 
as  revelations  of  thought.  It  has  created  none  of  the 
material  that  goes  to  make  these  forms.  Nor  does  it 
work  upon  raw  material.  But  it  takes  forms  already 
existing,  and  gathers  them  about  a  thought  so  much 
higher  than  tliey,  that  it  can  group  and  subordinate 
and  harmonize  them  into  a  whole  which  shall  represent, 
unveil  that  thought."  The  nature  of  this  process  we 
will  illustrate  by  an  examination  of  tlie  well-known 
Bugle  Song  in  Tennyson's  "  Princess." 

First  of  all,  there  is  the  new  music  of  the  song, 
which  does  not  even  remind  one  of  the  music  of  any 
other.     The  rhythm,  rhyme,  melody,  harmony  are  all 

6  Just  so  Spenser  describes  the  process  of  the  embodiment 
of  a  human  soul  in  his  Platonic  "  Hymn  in  Honour  of  Beauty." 
"  She  frames  her  house  in  w  hich  she  will  be  placed 
Fit  for  herself        ^        .         .         .         . 
And  the  gross  matter  by  a  sovereign  might 
Tt  mpers  so  trim    ..... 
For  of  the  soul  the  body  form  doth  take ; 
For  Boul  is  form,  and  doth  the  body  njake." 


THE    IMAGINATION.  21 

an  embodiment  in  sound,  as  distiDguished  from  word, 
of  what  can  be  so  embodied — the  feeling  of  the  poem, 
which  goes  before,  and  prepares  the  way  for  the  follow- 
ing thought — tunes  the  heart  into  a  receptive  harmony. 
Then  comes  the  new  arrangement  of  thought  and  figure 
whereby  the  meaning  contained  is  presented  as  it  never 
was  before.  We  give  a  sort  of  paraphrastical  synopsis 
of  the  poem,  which,  partly  in  virtue  of  its  disagreeablc- 
ness,  will  enable  the  lovers  of  the  song  to  return  to  it 
with  an  increase  of  pleasure. 

The  glory  of  midsummer  mid-day  upon  mountain, 
lake,  and  ruin.  Give  nature  a  voice  for  her  gladness. 
Blow,  bugle. 

N"ature  answers  with  dying  echoes,  sinking  in  the 
midst  of  her  splendour  into  a  sad  silence. 

ITot  so  with  human  nature.  The  echoes  of  the  word 
of  truth  gather  volume  and  richness  from  every  soul 
that  re-echoes  it  to  brother  and  sister  souls. 

With  poets  the  fashion  has  been  to  contrast  the 
stability  and  rejuvenescence  of  nature  with  the  evanes- 
cence and  unreturning  decay  of  humanity  : — 

"Yet  soon  reviving  plants  and  flowers,  anew  shall  deck  the 

plain ; 
The  woods   shall  hear  the  voice  of  Sprin;,',  and   flourish 

green  again. 
But  man  forsakes  this  earthly  scene,  ah  !  never  to  return : 
Shall  any  following  Spring  revive  the  ashes  of  the  urn  ?  " 

But  our  poet  vindicates  the  eternal  in  humanity : — 

••O  Love,  they  die  in  yon  rich  sky, 
They  faint  on  hill  or  field  or  river : 


-i-  THE    IMAGIXATIOX. 

Ot3t  echoes  roll  from  soul  to  soul, 
And  grow  for  ever  and  for  ever. 
Blow,  bugle,  blow,  set  the  wild  echoes  flying ; 
And  answer,  echoes,  answer,  Dying,  dying,  dying." 

Is  not  this  anew  form  to  the  thought — a  form  which 
makes  us  feel  the  truth  of  it  afresh  1  And  every  new 
embodiment  of  a  known  truth  must  be  a  new  and  wider 
revelation.  Ko  man  is  capable  of  seeing  for  himself 
the  whole  of  any  truth  :  he  needs  it  echoed  back  to  him 
from  every  soul  in  the  universe  ;  and  still  its  centre  is 
hid  in  the  Father  of  Lights.  In  so  far,  then,  as  either 
form  or  thought  is  new,  we  may  grant  the  use  of  the 
word  Creation,  modified  according  to  our  previous 
definitions. 

This  operation  of  the  imagination  in  choosing,  gather- 
ing, and  vitally  combining  the  material  of  a  new  reve- 
lation, may  be  well  illustrated  from  a  certain  employ- 
ment of  the  poetic  faculty  in  which  our  greatest  poets 
have  delighted.  Perceiving  truth  half  hidden  and  half 
revealed  in  the  slow  speech  and  stammering  tongue  of 
men  who  have  gone  before  them,  they  have  taken  up 
the  unfinished  form  and  completed  it ;  they  have,  as  it 
were,  rescued  the  soul  of  meauing  from  its  prison  of 
uninformed  crudity,  wiiere  it  sat  like  the  Prince  in  the 
"  Arabian  Nights,"  half  man,  half  marble  ;  they  have 
set  it  free  in  its  own  form,  in  a  shape,  namely,  which  it 
could  "  through  every  part  impress."  Shakespere's 
keen  eye  suggested  many  such  a  rescue  from  the  tomb 
— of  a  tale  drearily  told — a  tale  which  no  one  now 
would  read  save  for  the  glorified  form  in  which  he  has 
re-embodied  its  trae  contents.    And  from  Tennyson 


IHE    niAGIXATIOX.  23 

we  can  produue  one  specimen  small  enough  for  our  use, 
which,  a  mere  chip  from  the  great  marble  re-embody- 
ing the  old  legend  of  Arthur's  death,  may,  like  the 
hand  of  Achilles  holding  his  spear  in  the  crowded 
picture, 

"  Stand  for  the  whole  to  be  imagined.** 

In  the  "  History  of  Prince  Arthur,"  when  Sir  Bedi- 
vere  returns  after  hiding  Excalibur  the  first  time,  the 
king  asks  him  what  he  has  seen,  and  he  answers — 

"  Sir,  I  saw  nothing  but  waves  and  wind." 

The  second  time,  to  the  same  question,  he  answers — 

"  Sir,  I  saw  nothing  but  the  water  '  wap,  and  the  waves  wan." 

This  answer  Tennyson  has  expanded  into  the  well- 
known  lines— 

**  I  heard  the  ripple  washing  in  the  reeds. 
And  the  irild  water  lapping.on  the  crag  j" 

slightly  varied,  fdr  th^  other  occasion,  into — 

7  The  word  wop  is  plain  enough ;  the  word  wan  we  cannot 
satisfy  ourselves  about.  Had  it  been  used  with  regard  to  the 
water,  it  might  have  been  worth  remarking  that  wan,  meaning 
dark,  gloomy,  turbid,  is  a  common  adjective  to  a  river  in  the 
old  Scotch  ballad.  And  it  might  be  an  adjective  here ;  but 
that  is  not  likely,  seeing  it  is  conjoined  with  the  verb  wap. 
The  Anglo-Saxon  wanian,  to  decrease,  mi^ht  be  the  root- word, 
perhaps,  (in  the  sense  of  to  e&b,)  if  this  water  had  been  the 
sea  and  not  a  lake.  But  possibly  the  meaning  is,  "  I  heard 
the  water  whoop  or  wail  aloud "  (from  Wopan) ;  and  "  the 
waves  whine  or  hewadl"  (from  Wdnian  to  lament).  But  even 
th«n  the  two  yerbs  would  seem  to  predicate  of  transposed 
■ubjeo4g. 


24  THE    IMAGINATION. 

"  I  heard  the  wator  lapping  on  the  crag, 
And  the  long  ripple  washing  in  the  reeds.** 

But,  as  to  this  matter  of  creation,  is  there,  after  all, 
I  ask  yet,  any  genuine  sense  in  which  a  man  may  be 
said  to  create  his  own  thought-forms  ?  Allowing  that 
a  new  combination  of  forms  already  existing  might  be 
called  creation,  is  the  man,  after  all,  the  author  of  this 
new  combination  1  Did  he,  with  his  will  and  his 
knowledge,  proceed  wittingly,  consciously,  to  construct 
a  form  which  should  embody  his  thought  1  Or  did 
this  form  arise  within  him  without  will  or  effort  of  his 
— vivid  if  not  clear — certain  if  not  outlined  ?  Euskin 
(and  better  authority  we  do  not  know)  will  assert  the 
latter,  and  we  think  he  is  right :  though  perhaps  he 
would  insist  more  upon  the  absolute  perfection  of  the 
vision  than  we  are  quite  prepared  to  do.  Such  embodi- 
ments are  not  the  result  of  the  man's  intention,  or  of 
the  operation  of  his  conscious  nature.  His  feeling  is 
that  they  are  given  to  him ;  that  from  the  vast  un- 
known, where  time  and  space  are  not,  they  suddenly 
appear  in  luminous  writing  upon  the  wall  of  his  con- 
sciousness. Can  it  be  correct,  then,  to  say  that  he 
created  them  1  Nothing  less  so,  as  it  seems  to  us.  But 
can  we  not  say  that  they  are  the  creation  of  the  uncon- 
scious portion  of  his  nature  ?  Yes,  provided  we  can 
understand  that  that  which  is  the  individual,  the  man, 
can  know,  and  not  know  that  it  knows,  can  create  and 
yet  be  ignorant  that  virtue  has  gone  out  of  it.  Erom 
that  unknown  region  we  grant  they  come,  but  not  by 
its  own  blind  working.  Nor,  even  were  it  so,  could 
any  amount  of  such  production,  where  no  will  was  con- 


THE    nrAGIXATION.  25 

cemed,  be  dignified  with  the  name  of  creation.  But 
God  sits  in  that  chamber  of  our  being  in  which  the 
candle  of  our  consciousness  goes  out  in  darkness,  and 
sends  forth  from  thence  wonderful  gifts  into  the  light 
of  that  understanding  which  is  His  candle.  Our  hope 
lies  in  no  most  perfect  mechanism  even  of  the  spirit, 
but  in  the  wisdom  wherein  we  live  and  move  and  have 
our  being.  Thence  we  hope  for  endless  forms  of  beauty 
informed  of  truth.  If  the  dark  portion  of  our  own 
being  were  the  origin  of  our  imaginations,  we  might 
well  fear  the  apparition  of  such  monsters  as  would  be 
generated  in  the  sickness  of  a  decay  which  could  never 
feel — only  declare — a  slow  return  towards  primeval 
chaos.     But  the  Maker  is  our  Light. 

One  word  more,  ere  we  turn  to  consider  the  culture 
of  this  noblest  faculty,  which  we  might  well  call  the 
creative,  did  we  not  see  a  something  in  God  for  which 
we  would  humbly  keep  our  mighty  word : — the  fact 
that  there  is  always  more  in  a  work  of  art — which  is 
the  highest  human  result  of  the  embodying  imagination 
— than  the  producer  himself  perceived  while  he  pro- 
duced it,  seems  to  us  a  strong  reason  for  attributing  to 
it  a  larger  origin  than  the  man  alone — for  saying  at  the 
last,  that  the  inspiration  of  the  Almighty  shaped  its 
ends. 

We  return  now  to  the  class  which,  from  the  first,  we 
supposed  hostile  to  the  imagination  and  its  functions 
generally.  Those  belonging  to  it  will  now  say  :  "  It 
was  to  no  imagination  such  as  you  have  been  setting 
forth  that  we  were  opposed,  but  to  those  wild  fancies 
and  vague  reveries  in  which  young  people  indulge,  to 


26 


THE    IMAGINATION. 


the  damage  and  loss  of  the  real  in  the  world  around 
them." 

"  And,"  we  insist,  "  you  would  rectify  the  matter  by 
smothering  the  young  monster  at  once — because  he  has 
wings,  and,  young  to  their  use,  flutters  them  about  in  a 
way  discomposing  to  your  nerves,  and  destructive  to 
those  notions  of  propriety  of  which  this  creature — you 
stop  not  to  inquire  whether  angel  or  pterodactyle — ^has 
not  yet  learned  even  the  existence.  Or,  if  it  is  only 
the  creature's  vagaries  of  which  you  disapprove,  why 
speak  of  them  as  the  exercise  of  the  imagination?  As 
well  speak  of  religion  as  the  mother  of  cruelty  because 
religion  has  given  more  occasion  of -cruelty,  as  of  all 
dishonesty  and  devilry,  than  any  other  object  of  human 
interest.  Are  we  not  to  worship,  because  our  forefathers 
burned  and  stabbed  for  religion  ?  It  is  more  religion 
we  want.  It  is  more  imagination  we  need.  Be 
assured  that  these  are  but  the  first  vital  motions  of 
that  whose  results,  at  least  in  the  region  of  science,  you 
are  more  than  willing  to  accept."  That  evil  may 
spring  from  the  imagination,  as  from  everything  except 
the  perfect  love  of  God,  «annot  be  denied.  But  in- 
finitely worse  evils  would  be  the  result  of  its  absence. 
Selfishness,  avarice,  sensuality,  cruelty,  would  flourish 
tenfold  ;  and  the  power  of  Satan  would  be  weU  esta- 
blished ere  some  children  had  begun  to  choose.  Those 
who  would  quell  the  apparently  lawless  tossing  of  the 
spirit,  called  the  youthful  imagination,  would  suppress 
all  that  is  to  grow  out  of  it.  They  fear  the  enthusiasm 
they  never  felt ;  and  instead  of  cherishing  this  divine 
thing,  instead  of  giving  it  room  and  air  for  healthful 


THE    IMAGINATION.  27 

growth,  they  would  crush  and  confine  it — with  hut  one 
result  of  their  victorious  endeavours — imposthume, 
fever,  and  corruption.  And  the  disastrous  consequences 
would  soon  appear  in  the  intellect  likewise  which  they 
worship.  Kill  that  whence  spring  the  crude  fancies 
and  wild  day-dreams  of  the  young,  and  you  will  never 
lead  them  hey  end  dull  facts— dull  hecause  their  rela- 
tions to  each  other,  and  the  one  life  that  works  in  them 
all,  must  remain  undiscovered.  Whoever  would  have 
his  children  avoid  this  arid  region  will  do  well  to  allow 
no  teacher  to  approach  them — not  even  of  mathematics 
— who  has  no  imagination. 

"But  although  good  results  may  appear  in  a  few  from 
the  indulgence  of  the  imagination,  how  will  it  he  with 
the  many  1 " 

We  answer  that  the  antidote  to  indulgence  is 
development,  not  restraint,  and  that  such  is  the  duty  of 
the  wise  servant  of  Him  who  made  the  imagination. 

"But  will  most  girls,  for  instance,  rise  to  those 
useful  uses  of  the  imagination?  Are  they  not  more 
likely  to  exercise  it  in  building  castles  in  the  air  to  the 
neglect  of  houses  on  the  earth?  And  as  the  world 
affords  such  poor  scope  for  the  ideal,  will  not  this  habit 
breed  vain  desires  and  vain  regrets  ?  Is  it  not  better, 
therefore,  to  keep  to  that  which  is  known,  and  leave 
the  rest?"       . 

"Is  the  world  so  poor?"  we  ask  in  return.  The 
less  reason,  then,  to  be  satisfied  with  it;  the  more 
reason  to  rise  above  it,  into  the  region  of  the  true,  of  the 
eternal,  of  things  as  God  thinks  them.  This  outward 
world  is  but  a  passing  vision  of  the  persistent  true. 


28  THE   IMAGINATION. 

We  shall  not  live  in  it  always.  We  are  dwellers  in  a 
divine  universe  where  no  desires  are  in  vain,  if  only 
they  be  large  enough.  Not  even  in  this  world  do  all 
disappointments  breed  only  vain  regrets.*  And  as  to 
keeping  to  that  which  is  known  and  leaving  the  rest — 
how  many  affairs  of  this  world  are  so  well-defined,  so 
capable  of  being  clearly  understood,  as  not  to  leave 
large  spaces  of  uncertainty,  whose  very  correlate  faculty 
is  the  imagination  1  Indeed  it  must,  in  most  things, 
work  after  some  fashion,  filling  the  gaps  after  some 
possible  plan,  before  action  can  even  begin.  In  very 
truth,  a  wise  imagination,  which  is  the  presence  of  the 
spirit  of  God,  is  the  best  guide  that  man  or  woman 
can  have;  for  it  is  not  the  things  we  see  the  most 
clearly  that  influence  us  the  most  powerfully ;  unde- 
fined, yet  vivid  visions  of  something  beyond,  something 
which  eye  has  not  seen  nor  ear  heard,  have  far  more 
influence  than  any  logical  sequences  whereby  the  same 
things  may  be  demonstrated  to  the  intellect.  It  is  the 
nature  of  the  thing,  not  the  clearness  of  its  outline, 
that  determines  its  operation.  We  live  by  faith,  and 
not  by  sight.  Put  the  question  to  our  mathematicians 
— only  be  sure  the  question  reaches  them — whether 
they  would  part  with  the  well-defined  perfection  of  their 

•  "  We  will  grieve  not,  rather  find 
Strength  in  what  remains  behind ; 
In  the  primal  sympathy 
Which,  having  been,  must  ever  be; 
In  the  soothing  thoughts  that  sprii^ 
Out  of  human  suffering ; 
In  the  faith  that  looks  through  death, 
In  years  that  bring  the  philosophic  mind. 


THE   IMAGINATION.  29 

diagrams,  or  the  dim,  strange,  possibly  half-obliterated 
characters  woven  in  the  web  of  their  being;  their 
science,  in  short,  or  their  poetry  ;  their  certainties,  or 
their  hopes ;  their  consciousness  of  knowledge,  or  their 
vague  sense  of  that  which  cannot  be  known  absolutely  : 
will  they  hold  by  their  craft  or  by  their  inspirations, 
by  their  intellects  or  their  imaginations  1  If  they  say 
the  former  in  each  alternative,  I  shall  yet  doubt  whether 
the  objects  of  the  choice  are  actually  before  them,  and 
with  equal  presentation. 

What  can  be  known  must  be  known  severely  ;  but 
is  there,  therefore,  no  faculty  for  those  infinite  lands  of 
uncertainty  lying  all  about  the  sphere  hollowed  out  of 
the  dark  by  the  ghmmering  lamp  of  our  knowledge  1 
Are  they  not  the  natural  property  of  the  imagination  1 
there,  for  it,  that  it  may  have  room  to  grow  ]  there, 
that  the  man  may  learn  to  imagine  greatly  like  God 
who  made  him,  himself  discovering  their  mysteries, 
in  virtue  of  his  following  and  worshipping  imagina- 
tion? 

All  that  has  been  said,  then,  tends  to  enforce  the 
culture  of  the  imagination.  But  the  strongest  argument 
of  all  remains  behind.  For,  if  the  whole  power  of 
pedantry  should  rise  against  her,  the  imagination  will 
yet  work ;  and  if  not  for  good,  then  for  evil ;  if  not  for 
truth,  then  for  falsehood ;  if  not  for  life,  then  for  death  ; 
the  evil  alternative  becoming  the  more  likely  from  the 
unnatural  treatment  she  has  experienced  from  those 
who  ought  to  have  fostered  her.  The  power  that 
might  have  gone  forth  in  conceiving  the  noblest  forms 
of  action,  in  realizing  the  lives  of  the  true-hearted,  the 


30  THB   IMAGINATION. 

self-forgetting,  will  go  forth  in  building  airy  castles  of 
vain  ambition,  of  boundless  riches,  ot  unearned  admira- 
tion. The  imagination  that  might  be  devising  how  to 
make  home  blessed  or  to  help  the  poor  neighbour,  will 
be  absorbed  in  the  invention  of  the  new  dress,  or  worse, 
in  devising  the  means  of  procuring  it.  For,  if  she  be 
not  occupied  with  the  beautiful,  she  will  be  occupied 
by  the  pleasant ;  that  which  goes  not  out  to  worship, 
will  remain  at  home  to  be  sensual.  Cultivate  the  mere 
intellect  as  you  may,  it  will  never  reduce  the  passions : 
the  imagination,  seeking  the  ideal  in  everything,  will 
elevate  them  to  their  true  and  noble  service.  Seek 
not  that  your  sons  and  your  daughters  should  not  see 
visions,  should  not  dream  dreams;  seek  that  they 
should  see  true  visions,  that  they  should  dream  noble 
dreams.  Such  out-going  of  the  imagination  is  one  with 
aspiration,  and  will  do  more  to  elevate  above  what  is 
low  and  vile  than  all  possible  inculcations  of  morality. 
Nor  can  religion  herself  ever  rise  up  into  her  own  calm 
home,  her  crystal  shrine,  when  one  of  her  wings,  one 
of  the  twain  with  which  she  flies,  is  thus  broken  or 
paralyzed. 

**  The  universe  is  infinitely  wide, 
And  conquering  Reason,  if  self-glorified, 
Can  nowhere  move  uncrossed  by  some  new  wall 
Or  gulf  of  mystery,  which  thou  alone, 
Imaginative  Faith  !  canst  overleap, 
In  progress  towards  the  fount  of  love." 

The  danger  that  lies  in  the  repression  of  the  imagina- 
tion may  be  well  illustrated  from  the  play  of  **  Mac- 
beth.*   The  imagination  of  the  hero  (in  him  a  powerful 


THE    IMAGINATION.  31 

faculty),  representing  how  the  deed  -would  appear  to 
others,  and  so  representing  its  true  nature  to  himself, 
was  his  great  impediment  on  the  path  to  crime.  Nor 
would  he  have  succeeded  in  reaching  it,  had  he  not 
gone  to  his  wife  for  help — sought  refuge  from  his 
troublesome  imagination  with  her.  She,  possessing 
far  less  of  the  faculty,  and  having  dealt  more  destruc- 
tively with  what  she  had,  took  his  hand,  and  led  him 
to  the  deed.  From  her  imagination,  again,  she  for  her 
part  takes  refuge  in  unbelief  and  denial,  declaring  to 
herself  and  her  husband  that  there  is  no  reality  in  its 
representations;  that  there  is  no  reality  in  anything 
beyond  the  present  effect  it  produces  on  the  mind  upon 
which  it  operates ;  that  intellect  and  courage  are  equal 
to  any,  even  an  evil  emergency ;  and  that  no  harm 
will  come  to  those  who  can  rule  themselves  according 
to  their  own  will.  Still,  however,  finding  her  imagina- 
tion, and  yet  more  that  of  her  husband,  troublesome, 
she  effects  a  marvellous  combination  of  materialism  and 
idealism,  and  asserts  that  things  are  not,  cannot  be, 
and  shall  not  be  more  or  other  than  people  choose  to 
think  them.     She  says, — 

**  These  deeds  must  not  be  thonght 
After  these  ways  ;  so,  it  will  make  us  mad.'* 

"  The  sleeping  and  the  dead 
Are  but  as  pictures." 

But  she  had  over-estimated  the  power  of  her  will,  and 
under-estimated  that  of  her  imagination.  Her  will 
was  the  one  thing  in  her  that  was  bad,  without  root 
or  support  in  the  universe,  while  her  imagination  was 


82  THE    IMAGINATION. 

the  voice  of  God  himself  out  of  her  own  nnknown 
being.  The  choice  of  no  man  or  woman  can  long 
determine  how  or  what  he  or  she  shall  think  of  things. 
Lady  Macbeth's  imagination  would  not  be  repressed 
beyond  its  appointed  period — a  time  determined  by 
laws  of  her  being  over  which  she  had  no  control.  It 
arose,  at  length,  as  from  the  dead,  overshadowing  her 
with  all  the  blackness  of  her  crime.  The  woman  who 
drank  strong  drink  that  she  might  murder,  dared  not 
sleep  without  a  light  by  her  bed  ;  rose  and  walked  in 
the  night,  a  sleepless  spirit  in  a  sleeping  body,  rubbing 
the  spotted  hand  of  her  dreams,  which,  often  as  water 
had  cleared  it  of  the  deed,  yet  smelt  so  in  her  sleeping 
nostrils,  that  all  the  perfumes  of  Arabia  would  not 
sweeten  it.  Thus  her  long  down-trodden  imagination 
rose  and  took  vengeance,  even  through  those  senses 
which  she  had  thought  to  subordinate  to  her  wicked 
will. 

But  all  this  is  of  the  imagination  itself,  and  fitter, 
therefore,  for  illustration  than  for  argument.  Let  us 
come  to  facts. — Dr.  Pritchard,  lately  executed  for 
murder,  had  no  lack  of  that  invention,  which  is,  as  it 
were,  the  intellect  of  the  imagination — its  lowest  form. 
One  of  the  clergymen  who,  at  his  own  request,  attended 
the  prisoner,  went  through  indescribable  horrors  in  the 
vain  endeavour  to  induce  the  man  simply  to  cease  from 
lying :  one  invention  after  another  followed  the  most 
earnest  asseverations  of  truth.  The  effect  produced 
upon  us  by  this  clergyman's  report  of  his  experience 
was  a  moral  dismay,  such  as  we  had  never  felt  with 
regard  to  human  being,  and  drew  from  us  the  exclama- 


THE    IMAGINATION.  33 

tion,  **The  man  could  have  had  no  imagination." 
The  reply  was,  "  None  whatever."  Never  seeking  true 
or  high  things,  caring  only  for  appearances,  and,  there- 
fore, for  inventions,  he  had  left  his  imagination  all  un- 
developed, and  when  it  represented  his  own  inner  con- 
dition to  him,  had  repressed  it  until  it  was  nearly  de- 
stroyed, and  what  remained  of  it  was  set  on  fire  of  hell." 
Man  is  "  the  roof  and  crown  of  things."  He  is  the 
world,  and  more.  Therefore  the  chief  scope  of  his 
imagination,  next  to  God  who  made  him,  will  he  the 
world  in  relation  to  his  own  life  therein.  Will  he  do 
hetter  or  worse  in  it  if  this  imagination,  touched  to  fine 
issues  and  having  free  scope,  present  him  with  noble 
pictures  of  relationship  and  duty,  of  possible  elevation 
of  character  and  attainable  justice  of  behaviour,  of 
friendship  and  of  love ;  and,  above  all,  of  all  these  in 
that  life  to  understand  which  as  a  whole,  must  €ver  be 
the  loftiest  aspiration  of  this  noblest  power  of  humanity  1 
Will  a  woman  lead  a  more  or  a  less  troubled  life  that 
the  sights  and  sounds  of  nature  break  through  the 
crust  of  gathering  anxiety,  and  remind  her  of  the  peace 
of  the  lilies  and  the  well-being  of  the  birds  of  the  airl 
Or  will  life  be  less  interesting  to  her,  that  the  lives  of 
her  neighbours,  instead  of  passing  like  shadows  upon 
a  wall,  assume  a  consistent  wholeness,  forming  them- 

•  One  of  the  best  weekly  papers  in  London,  evidently  as 
much  in  ignorance  of  the  man  as  of  the  facts  of  the  case, 
spoke  of  Dr.  MacLeod  as  having  been  engaged  in  "  white- 
washing the  murderer  for  heaven."  So  far  is  this  from  a  true 
representation,  that  Dr.  MacLeod  actually  refused  to  pray 
with  him,  telling  him  that  if  there  was  a  hell  to  go  to,  he  must 
go  to  it. 

D 


c  '■  :;^ 


CK ).'-;,'..., :':^ 


34  THE   IMAGINATION. 

selves  into  stories  and  phases  of  life  1     Will  she  not 
hereby  love  more  and  talk  less  ?     Or  will  she  be  more 

unlikely  to  make  a  good  match 1     But  here  we 

arrest  ourselves  in  bewilderment  over  the  word  good, 
and  seek  to  re-arrange  our  thoughts.  If  what  mothers 
mean  by  a  good  match,  is  the  alliance  of  a  man  of 
position  and  means — or  let  them  throw  intellect, 
manners,  and  personal  advantages  into  the  same  scale ' 
— if  this  be  all,  then  we  grant  the  daughter  of  culti- 
vated imagination  may  not  be  manageable,  will  pro- 
bably be  obstinate.  We  hope  she  will  be  obstinate 
enough.*  But  will  the  girl  be  less  likely  to  marry  a 
gentleman,  in  the  grand  old  meaning  of  the  sixteenth 
century  1  when  it  was  no  irreverence  to  call  our  Lord 

**  The  first  true  gentleman  that  ever  breathed  ;'* 

or  in  that  of  the  fourteenth  1 — when  Chaucer  teaching 
"  whom  is  worthy  to  be  called  gentill,"  writes  thus  : — 

"  The  first  stocke  was  full  of  rightwisnes, 
Trewe  of  his  worde,  sober,  pitous  and  free, 
Clene  of  his  goste,  and  loved  besinesse. 
Against  the  vice  of  slouth  in  honeste ; 
And  but  his  heire  love  vertue  as  did  he, 

•  Let  women  who  feel  the  wrongs  of  their  kind  teach  women 
to  be  high-minded  in  their  relation  to  men,  and  they  will  do 
more  for  the  social  elevation  of  women,  and  the  establishment 
of  their  rights,  whatever  those  rights  may  be,  than  by 
any  amount  of  intellectual  development  or  assertion  of 
equality.  Nor,  if  they  are  other  than  mere  partisans,  will  thej' 
refuse  the  attempt  because  in  its  success  men  will,  after  all, 
be  equal,  if  not  greater  gainers,  if  only  thereby  they  should  be 
"  feelingly  persuaded  "  what  they  are. 


THE   IMAGINATION.  85 

He  18  not  gentill  thougli  he  rioli  seme, 
All  weare  he  miter,  crowne,  or  diademe." 

Will  she  be  less  likely  to  marry  one  who  honours 
women,  and  for  their  sakes,  as  well  as  his  own,  honours 
himself  ?  Or  to  speak  from  what  many  would  regard 
as  the  mother's  side  of  the  question — will  the  girl  be 
more  likely,  because  of  such  a  culture  of  her  imagina- 
tion, to  refuse  the  wise,  true-hearted,  generous  rich 
man,  and  fall  in  love  with  the  talking,  verse-making 
fool,  because  be  is  poor,  as  if  that  were  a  virtue  for 
which  he  had  striven  'i  The  highest  imagination  and 
the  lowliest  common  sense  are  always  on  one  side. 

For  the  end  of  imagination*  is  harmony.  A  right 
imagination,  being  the  reflex  of  the  creation,  will  fall 
in  with  the  divine  order  of  things  as  the  highest  form 
of  its  own  operation  ;  "  will  tune  its  instrument  here 
at  the  door  "  to  the  divine  harmonies  within ;  will  be 
content  alone  with  growth  towards  the  divine  idea, 
which  includes  all  that  is  beautiful  in  the  imperfect 
imaginations  of  men  ;  will  know  that  every  deviation 
from  that  growth  is  downward;  and  will  therefore 
send  the  man  forth  from  its  loftiest  representations  to 
do  the  commonest  duty  of  the  most  wearisome  calling 
in  a  hearty  and  hopeful  spirit.  This  is  the  work  of 
the  right  imagination ;  and  towards  this  work  every 
imagination,  in  proportion  to  the  rightness  that  is  in 
it,  will  tend.  The  reveries  even  of  the  wise  man  will 
make  him  stronger  for  his  work  ;  his  dreaming  as  well 
as  his  thinking  will  render  him  sorry  for  past  failure, 
and  hopeful  of  future  success. 

To  come  now  to  the  culture  of  the  imaginatioa  Ite 
D  2 


36  "  THE   IMAGINATION. 

development  is  one  of  the  main  ends  of  the  divine 
education  of  life  with  all  its  efiforts  and  experiences. 
Therefore  the  first  and  essential  means  for  its  culture 
must  be  an  ordering  of  our  life  towards  harmony  with 
its  ideal  in  the  mind  of  God.  As  he  that  is  willing  to 
do  the  will  of  the  Father,  shall  know  of  the  doctrine, 
so,  we  doubt  not,  he  that  will  do  the  will  of  The  Poet, 
shall  behold  the  Beautiful.  Eor  all  is  God's ;  and  the 
man  who  is  growing  into  harmony  with  His  will,  is 
growing  into  harmony  with  himself;  all  the  hidden 
glories  of  his  being  are  coming  out  into  the  light  of 
humble  consciousness  ;  so  that  at  the  last  he  shall  be 
a  pure  microcosm,  faithfully  reflecting,  after  his  manner, 
the  mighty  macrocosm.  We  believe,  therefore,  that 
nothing  will  do  so  much  for  the  intellect  or  the  imagi- 
nation as  being  good — we  do  not  mean  after  any  formula 
or  any  creed,  but  simply  after  the  faith  of  Him  who 
did  the  will  of  his  Father  in  heaven. 

But  if  we  speak  of  direct  means  for  the  culture  of 
•  the  imagination,  the  whole  is  comprised  in  two  words 
— food  and  exercise.  If  you  want  strong  arms,  take 
animal  food,  and  row.  Feed  your  imagination  with 
food  convenient  for  it,  and  exercise  it,  not  in  the  con- 
tortions of  the  acrobat,  but  in  the  movements  of  the 
gymnast.     And  first  for  the  food. 

Goethe  has  told  us  that  the  way  to  develop  the 
aesthetic  faculty  is  to  have  constantly  before  our  eyes, 
that  is,  in  the  room  we  most  frequent,  some  work  of 
the  best  attainable  art.  This  will  teach  us  to  refuse 
the  evil  and  choose  the  good.  It  will  plant  itself  in 
our  minds  and  become  our  counsellor.     Involuntarily, 


THE    131 A  (i  I. NATION.  37 

unconsciously,  we  shall  compare  with  its  perfection 
everything  that  conies  before  us  for  judgment.  Kow, 
although  no  better  advice  could  be  given^  it  involves 
one  danger,  that  of  narrowness.  And  not  easily,  in 
dread  of  this  danger,  would  one  change  his  tutor,  and 
so  procure  variety  of  instruction.  But  in  the  culture 
of  the  imagination,  books,  although  not  the  only,  are 
the  readiest  means  of  supplying  the  food  convenient 
for  it,  and  a  hundred  books  may  be  had  where  even 
one  work  of  art  of  the  right  sort  is  unattainable,  seeing 
such  must  be  of  some  size  as  well  as  of  thorough  ex- 
cellence. And  in  variety  alone  is  safety  from  the 
danger  of  the  convenient  food  becoming  the  incon- 
venient model. 

Let  us  suppose,  then,  that  one  who  himself  justly 
estimates  the  imagination  is  anxious  to  develop  its 
operation  in  his  child.  No  doubt  the  best  beginning, 
especially  if  the  child  be  young,  is  an  acquaintance 
with  nature,  in  which  let  him  be  encoumged  to  observe 
vital  phenomena,  to  put  things  together,  to  speculate 
from  what  he  sees  to  what  he  does  not  see.  But  let 
earnest  care  be  taken  that  upon  no  matter  shall  he  go 
on  talking  foolishly.  Let  him  be  as  fanciful  as  he 
may,  but  let  him  not,  even  in  his  fancy,  sin  against 
fancy's  sense ;  for  fancy  has  its  laws  as  certainly  as  the 
most  ordinary  business  of  life.  When  he  is  silly,  let 
him  know  it  and  be  ashamed. 

But  where  this  association  with  nature  is  but  occa- 
sionally possible,  recourse  must  be  had  to  Kterature. 
In  books,  we  not  only  have  store  of  all  results  of  the 
imagination,  but  in  them,  as  in  her  workshop,  we  may 


05  THE    IMAGINATION. 

"behold  her  embodying  before  our  very  eyes,  in  imisio 
of  speech,  in  wonder  of  words,  till  her  work,  like  a 
golden  dish  set  with  shining  jewels,  and  adorned  by 
the  hands  of  the  cunning  workmen,  stands  finished 
before  us.  In  this  kind,  then,  the  best  must  be  set 
before  the  learner,  that  he  may  eat  and  not  be  satisfied ; 
for  the  finest  products  of  the  imagination  are  of  the 
best  nourishment  for  the  beginnings  of  that  imagina- 
tion. And  the  mind  of  the  teacher  must  mediate 
between  the  work  of  art  and  the  mind  of  the  pupil, 
bringing  them  together  in  the  vital  contact  of  intel- 
ligence; directing  the  observation  to  the  lines  of 
expression,  the  points  of  force ;  and  helping  the  mind 
to  repose  upon  the  whole,  so  that  no  separable  beauties 
shall  lead  to  a  neglect  of  the  scope — that  is  the  shape 
or  form  complete.  And  ever  he  must  seek  to  show 
excellence  rather  than  talk  about  it,  giving  the  thing 
itself,  that  it  may  grow  into  the  mind,  and  not  a 
eulogy  of  his  own  upon  the  thing ;  isolating  the  point 
worthy  of  remark  rather  than  making  many  remarks 
upon  the  point. 

Especially  must  he  endeavour  to  show  the  spiritual 
scaffolding  or  skeleton  of  any  work  of  art;  those 
main  ideas  upon  which  the  shape  is  constructed,  and 
around  which  the  rest  group  as  ministering  depen- 
dencies. 

But  he  will  not,  therefore,  pass  over  that  intellectual 
structure  without  which  the  other  could  not  be  mani- 
fested. .  He  will  not  forget  the  builder  while  he  ad- 
mires the  architect.  While  he  dwells  with  delight  on 
the  relation  of  the  peculiar  arch  to  the  meaning  of  the 


THE    IMAGINATION.  W 

whole  cathedral,  he  will  not  think  it  needless  to  explain 
the  principles  on  which  it  is  constructed,  or  even  how 
those  principles  are  carried  ont  in  actual  process. 
Neither  yet  will  the  tracery  of  its  windows,  the  foliage 
of  its  crockets,  or  the  fretting  of  its  mouldings  be  for- 
gotten. Every  beauty  will  have  its  word,  only  all 
beauties  will  be  subordinated  to  the  final  beauty — that 
is,  the  unity  of  the  whole. 

Thus  doing,  he  shall  perform  the  true  office  of 
friendship.  He  will  introduce  his  pupil  into  the 
society  which  he  himself  prizes  most,  surrounding  him 
with  the  genial  presence  of  the  high-minded,  that  this 
good  company  may  work  its  own  kind  in  him  who 
frequents  it. 

But  he  will  likewise  seek  to  turn  him  aside  from 
such  company,  whether  of  books  or  of  men,  as  might 
tend  to  lower  his  reverence,  his  choice,  or  his  standard. 
He  will,,  therefore,  discourage  indiscriminate  reading, 
and  that  worse  than  waste  which  consists  in  skimming 
the  books  of  a  circulating  library.  He  knows  that  if 
a  book  is  worth  reading  at  all,  it  is  worth  reading  well ; 
and  that,  if  it  is  not  worth  reading,  it  is  only  to  the 
most  accomplished  reader  that  it  can  be  worth  skim- 
ming. He -will  seek  to  make  him  discern,  not  merely 
between  the  good  and  the  evil,  but  between  the  good 
and  the  not  so  good.  And  this  not  for  the  sake  of 
sharpening  the  intellect,  still  less  of  generating  that 
self-satisfaction  which  is  the  closest  attendant  upon 
criticism,  but  for  the  sake  of  choosing  the  best  path 
and  the  best  companions  upon  it.  A  spirit  of  criticism 
for  the  sake  of  distinguishing  only,  or,  far  worse,  for 


40  THE    IMAGINATION. 

the  sake  of  having  one^s  opinion  ready  upon  demand, 
is  not  merely  repulsive  to  all  true  thinkers,  but  is,  in 
itself,  destructive  of  all  thinking.  A  spirit  of  criticism 
for  the  sake  of  the  truth — a  spirit  that  does  not  start 
from  its  chamber  at  every  noise,  but  waits  till  its 
presence  is  desired — cannot,  indeed,  garnish  the  house, 
but  can  sweep  it  clean.  Were  there  enough  of  such 
wise  criticism,  there  would  be  ten  times  the  study  of 
the  best  writers  of  the  past,  and  perhaps  one-tenth  of 
the  admiration  for  the  ephemeral  productions  of  the 
day.  A  gathered  mountain  of  misplaced  worships 
would  be  swept  into  the  sea  by  the  study  of  one  good 
book ;  and  while  what  was  good  in  an  inferior  book 
would  still  be  admired,  the  relative  position  of  the 
book  would  be  altered  and  its  influence  lessened. 

Speaking  of  true  learning,  Lord  Bacon  says  :  "It 
taketh  away  vain  admiration  of  anything,  which  is  the 
root  of  all  loeakness." 

The  right  teacher  would  have  his  pupil  easy  to 
please,  but  ill  to  satisfy ;  ready  to  enjoy,  unready  to 
embrace  ;  keen  to  discover  beauty,  slow  to  say,  "  Here 
I  will  dwell." 

But  he  will  not  confine  his  instructions  to  the  region 
of  art.  He  will  encourage  him  to  read  history  with  an 
eye  eager  for  the  dawning  figure  of  the  past.  He  will 
especially  show  him  that  a  great  part  of  the  Bible  is 
only  thus  to  be  understood ;  and  that  the  constant  and 
consistent  way  of  God,  to  be  discovered  in  it,  is  in  fact 
the  key  to  all  history. 

In  the  history  of  individuals,  as  well,  he  will  try  to 
show  him  how  to  put  sign  and  token  together,  con- 


THE    IMAGINATION.  41 

structing  not  indeed  a  whole,  but  a  probable  suggestion 
of  the  whole. 

And,  again,  while  showing  him  the  reflex  of  nature 
in  the  poets,  he  will  not  be  satisfied  without  sending 
him  to  I^ature  herself;  urging  him  in  country  rambles 
to  keep  open  eyes  for  the  sweet  fashionings  and  blend- 
ings  of  her  operation  around  him ;  and  in  city  walks 
to  watch  the  "  human  face  divine." 

Once  more  :  he  will  point  out  to  him  the  essential 
difference  between  reverie  and  thought;  between 
dreaming  anfl  imagining.  He  will  teach  him  not  to 
mistake  fancy,  either  in  himself  or  in  others  for  ima- 
gination, and  to  beware  of  hunting  after  resemblances 
that  carry  with  them  no  interpretation. 

Such  training  is  not  solely  fitted  for  the  possible 
development  of  artistic  faculty.  Few,  in  this  world, 
will  ever  be  able  to  utter  what  they  feel.  Fewer  still 
will  be  able  to  utter  it  in  forms  of  their  own.  'Nov  is 
it  necessary  that  there  should  be  many  such.  But  it  is 
necessary  that  all  should  feel.  It  is  necessary  that  all 
should  understand  and  imagine  the  good ;  that  all 
should  begin,  at  least,  to  follow  and  find  out  God. 

"The^lory  of  God  is^tjo  conceal  a  thing,  but  the 
glory  of  the  king  is  to  find  it  out,"  says  Solomon. 
"As  if,"  remarks  Bacon  on  the  passage,  "according  to 
the  innocent  play  of  children,  the  Divine  Majesty  took 
delight  to  hide  his  works,  to  the  end  to  have  them 
found  out ;  and  as  if  kings  could  not  obtain  a  greater 
honour  than  to  be  God's  playfellows  in  that  game." 

One  more  quotation  from  the  book  of  Ecclesiastes, 
setting  forth  both  the  necessity  we  are  under  to  imaginei 


42  THE   IMAGINATION. 

and  the  comfort  that  our  imagining  cannot  outstrip 
God's  making. 

"  I  have  seen  the  travail  which  God  hath  given  to 
the  sons  of  men  to  be  exercised  in  it.  He  hath  made 
everything  beautiful  in  his  time  ;  also  he  hath  set  the 
world  in  their  heart,  so  that  no  man  can  find  out  the 
work  that  God  maketh  from  the  beginning  to  the 
end." 

Thus  to  be  playfellows  with  God  in  this  game,  the 
little  ones  may  gather  their  daisies  and  follow  their 
painted  moths ;  the  child  of  the  kingdom  may  pore 
upon  the  lilies  of  the  field,  and  gather  faith  as  the 
birds  of  the  air  their  food  from  the  leafless  hawthorn, 
ruddy  with  the  stores  God  has  laid  up  for  them ;  and 
the  man  of  science 

"  May  sit  and  rightly  spell 
Of  every  star  that  heaven  doth  shew. 
And  every  herb  that  sips  the  dew  j 
Till  old  experience  do  attain 
To  something  like  prophetio  strain.* 


A   SKETCH  OF   INDIVIDUAL   DEVEL- 
OPMENT. 

WISH  I  had  thought  to  watch  when  God 
was  making  me ! "  said  a  child  once  to 
his  mother.  "Only,"  he  added,  "I  was 
not  made  till  I  was  finished,  so  I 
couldn't."  "We  cannot  recall  whence  we  came,  nor  tell 
how  we  began  to  be.  We  know  approximately  how 
far  back  we  can  remember,  but  have  no  idea  how  far 
back  we  may  not  have  forgotten.  Certainly  we  knew 
once  much  that  we  have  forgotten  now.  My  own 
earliest  definable  memory  is  of  a  great  funeral  of  one  of 
the  Dukes  of  Gordon,  when  I  was  between  two  and 
three  years  of  age.  Surely  my  first  knowledge  was  not 
of  death.  I  must  have  known  much  and  many  things 
belore,  although  that  seems  my  earliest  memory.  As 
in  what  we  foolishly  call  maturity,  so  in  the  dawn  of 
consciousness,  both  before  and  after  it  has  begun  to  be 
buttressed  with  6'eZ/-consciousness,  each  succeeding 
consciousness  dims — often  obliterates — that  which  went 
betbre,  and  with  regard  to  our  past  as  well  as  our 
future,  imagination  and  faith  must  step  into  the  place 
vacated  of  knowledge.     We  are  aware,  and  we  know 

1  1880. 


44  INDIVIDUAL    DEVELOPMENT. 

that  we  are  aware,  but  when  or  how  we  began  to  be 
aware,  is  wrapt  in  a  mist  that  deepens  on  the  one  side 
into  deepest  night,  and  on  the  other  brightens  into  the 
full  assurance  of  existence.  Looking  back  we  can  but 
dream,  looking  forward  we  lose  ourselves  in  specula- 
tion ;  but  we  may  both  speculate  and  dream,  for  all 
speculation  is  not  false,  and  all  dreaming  is  not  of  the 
unreal.  What  may  we  fairly  imagine  as  to  the  inward 
condition  of  the  child  before  the  first  moment  of  which 
his  memory  affords  him  testimony  ? 

It  is  one,  I  venture  to  say,  of  absolute,  though,  no 
doubt,  largely  negative  faith.  Neither  memory  of  pain 
that  is  past,  nor  apprehension  of  pain  to  come,  once 
arises  to  give  him  the  smallest  concern.  In  some  way, 
doubtless  very  vague,  for  his  being  itself  is  a  border- 
land of  awful  mystery,  he  is  aware  of  being  surrounded, 
enfolded  with  an  atmosphere  of  love ;  the  sky  over  him 
is  his  mother's  face ;  the  earth  that  nourishes  him  is 
his  mother's  bosom.  The  source,  the  sustentation,  the 
defence  of  his  being,  the  endless  mediation  betwixt  his 
needs  and  the  things  that  supply  them,  are  all  one. 
There  is  no  type  so  near  the  highest  idea  of  relation  to 
a  God,  as  that  of  the  child  to  his  mother.  Her  face  is 
God,  her  bosom  Nature,  her  arms  are  Providence — all 
love — one  love — to  him  an  undivided  bliss. 

The  region  beyond  him  he  regards  from  this  vantage- 
ground  of  unquestioned  security.  There  things  may 
come  and  go,  rise  and  vanish — he  neither  desires  nor 
bemoans  them.  Change  may  grow  swift,  its  swiftness 
grow  fierce,  and  pass  into  storm  :  to  him  storm  is  calm ; 
his  haven  is  secure ;  his  lest  cannot  be  bioken :  he  is 


INDIVIDUAL    DEVELOPMENT.  45 

acconntable  for  nothing,  knows  no  responsibility.  Con- 
science is  not  yet  awake,  and  there  is  no  conflict. 
His  waking  is  full  of  sleep,  yet  his  very  being  is 
enough  for  him. 

But  all  the  time  his  mother  lives  in  the  hope  of  his 
growth.  In  the  present  babe,  her  heart  broods  over 
the  coming  boy — the  unknown  marvel  closed  in  the 
visible  germ.  Let  mothers  lament  as  they  will  over 
the  change  from  childhood  to  maturity,  which  of  them 
would  not  grow  weary  of  nursing  for  ever  a  child  in 
whom  no  live  law  of  growth  kept  unfolding  an  infinite 
change  !  The  child  knows  nothing  of  growth — desires 
none — but  grows.  Within  him  is  the  force  of  a  power 
he  can  no  more  resist  than  the  peach  can  refuse  to 
swell  and  grow  ruddy  in  the  sun.  By  slow,  inappre- 
ciable, indivisible  accretion  and  outfolding,  he  is  lifted, 
floated,  drifted  on  towards  the  face  of  tlie  awful  mirror 
in  which  he  must  encounter  his  first  foe— must  front 
himself. 

By  degrees  he  has  learned  that  the  world  is  around, 
and  not  within  him -that  he  is  apart,  and  that  is 
apart ;  from  consciousness  he  passes  to  self-conscious- 
ness. This  is  a  second  birth,  for  now  a  higher  life 
begins.  When  a  man  not  only  lives,  but  knows  that 
lie  lives,  then  first  the  possibility  of  a  real  life  com- 
mences. By  real  life,  I  mean  life  which  has  a  share 
in  its  own  existence. 

For  now,  towards  the  world  around  him — the  world 
that  is  not  his  mother,  and,  actively  at  least,  neither 
loves  him  nor  ministers  to  him,  reveal  themselves  cer- 
tain relations,  initiated  by  fancies,  desires,  preferences, 


46  INDIVIDUAL    DEVELOPMENT. 

that  arise  within  himself — reasonable  or  not  matters 
little : — founded  in  reason,  they  can  in  no  case  be 
devoid  of  reason.  Every  object  concerned  in  these 
relations  presents  itself  to  the  man  as  lovely,  desirable, 
good,  or  ugly,  baleful,  bad  ;  and  through  these  rela- 
tions, obscure  and  imperfect,  and  to  a  being  weighted 
with  a  strong  faculty  for  miskike,  begins  to  be  revealed 
the  existence  and  force  of  Being  other  and  higher  than 
his  own,  recognized  as  Will,  and  first  of  all  in  its 
opposition  to  his  desires.  Thereupon  begins  the  strife 
without  which  there  never  was,  and,  I  presume,  never 
;;an  be,  any  growth,  any  progress  ;  and  the  first  result 
is  what  I  may  call  the  third  birth  of  the  human  being. 
The  first  opposing  glance  of  the  mother  wakes  in  the 
child  not  only  answering  opposition,  which  is  as  the 
rudimentary  sac  of  his  own  coming  will,  but  a  new 
something,  to  which  for  long  he  needs  no  name,  so 
natural  does  it  seem,  so  entirely  a  portion  of  his  being, 
even  when  most  he  refuses  to  listen  to  and  obey  it.  This 
new  something — we  call  it  Conscience — sides  with  his 
mother,  and  causes  its  presence  and  judgment  to  be  felt 
not  only  before  but  after  the  event,  so  that  he  soon 
comes  to  know  that  it  is  well  with  him  or  ill  with  him 
as  he  obeys  or  disobeys  it.  And  now  he  not  only 
knows,  not  only  knows  that  he  knows,  but  knows 
he  knows  that  he  knows — knows  that  he  is  self-con- 
scious— that  he  has  a  conscience.  With  the  first 
sense  of  resistance  to  it,  the  power  above  him  has 
drawn  nearer,  and  the  deepest  within  him  has  declared 
itself  on  the  side  of  the  highest  without  him.  At  one 
and  the  same  monient,  the  heaven  of  his  childhood  has, 


INDIVIDUAL    DEVELOPMENT.  47 

as  it  were,  receded  and  come  nigher.  lie  has  run  from 
under  it,  but  it  claims  him.  It  is  farther,  yet  closer 
— immeasurably  closer  :  he  feels  on  his  being  the  grasp 
and  hold  of  his  mother's.  Through  the  higher  indivi- 
duality he  becomes  aware  of  his  own.  Through  the 
assertion  of  his  mother's  will,  his  own  begins  to  awake. 
He  becomes  conscious  of  himself  as  capable  of  action — 
of  doing  or  of  not  doing ;  his  responsibility  has  begun. 
He  slips  from  her  lap  ;  he  travels  from  chair  to  chair  ; 
he  puts  his  circle  round  the  room  ;  he  dares  to  cross 
the  threshold ;  he  braves  the  precipice  of  the  stair ;  he 
takes  the  greatest  step  that,  according  to  George  Her- 
bert, is  possible  to  man  —  that  out  of  doors,  changing 
the  house  for  the  universe;  he  runs  from  flower  to 
flower  in  the  garden  ;  crosses  the  road  ;  wanders,  is 
lost,  is  found  again.  His  powers  expand,  his  activity 
increases ;  he  goes  to  school,  and  meets  other  boys  like 
himself ;  new  objects  of  strife  are  discovered,  new  ele- 
ments of  strife  developed ;  new  desires  are  born,  fresh 
impulses  urge.  The  old  heaven,  the  face  and  will  of 
his  mother,  recede  farther  and  farther  ;  a  world  of  men, 
which  he  foolishly  thinks  a  nobler  as  it  is  a  larger 
world,  draws  him,  claims  him.  More  or  less  he  yields. 
The  example  and  influence  of  such  as  seem  to  him 
more  than  his  mother  like  himself,  grow  strong  upon 
him.  Hia  conscience  speaks  louder.  And  here,  even 
at  this  early  point  in  his  history,  what  I  might  call 
his  fourth  birth  may  begin  lo  take  place  :  I  mean  the 
birth  in  him  of  the  Will — the  real  Will — not  the 
pseudo-will,  which  is  the  mere  Desire,  swayed  of  im- 
pulse, selfishness,  or  one  of  many  a  miserable  motive. 


48  INDIYIDUAL    DEVELOPMENT. 

When  the  man,  listening  to  his  conscience,  wills  and 
does  the  right,  irrespective  of  inclination  as  of  conse- 
quence, then  is  the  man  free,  the  universe  open  before 
him.  He  is  born  from  above.  To  him  conscience 
needs  never  speak  aloud,  needs  never  speak  twice ;  to 
him  her  voice  never  grows  less  powerful,  for  he  never 
neglects  what  she  commands.  And  when  he  becomes 
aware  that  he  can  will  his  will,  that  God  has  given 
him  a  share  in  essential  life,  in  the  causation  of  his 
own  being,  then  is  he  a  man  indeed.  I  say,  even  here 
this  birth  may  begin ;  but  with  most  it  takes  years  not 
a  few  to  complete  it.  For,  the  power  of  the  mother 
having  waned,  the  power  of  the  neighbour  is  waxing. 
If  the  boy  be  of  common  clay,  that  is,  of  clay  willing 
to  accept  dishonour,  this  power  of  the  neighbour  over 
him  will  increase  and  increase,  till  individuality  shall 
have  vanished  from  him,  and  what  his  friends,  what 
society,  what  the  trade  or  the  profession  say,  will  be  to 
him  the  rule  of  life.  With  such,  however,  I  have  to 
do  no  more  than  with  the  deaf  dead,  who  sleep  too 
deep  for  words  to  reach  them. 

My  typical  child  of  man  is  not  of  such.  He  is  capa- 
ble not  of  being  influenced  merely,  but  of  influencing 
— and  first  of  all  of  influencing  himself ;  of  taking 
a  share  in  his  own  making ;  of  determinij^g  actively, 
not  by  mere  passivity,  what  he  shall  be  and  become ; 
for  he  never  ceases  to  pay  at  least  a  little  heed,  how- 
ever poor  and  intermittent,  to  the  voice  of  his  con- 
science, and  to-day  he  pays  more  heed  than  he  did 
yesterday. 

Long  ere  now  the  joy  of  space,  of  room,  has  laid 


INDIVIDUAL    DEVELOPMENT.  49 

hold  upon  him — the  more  powerfully  if  he  inhabit  a 
wild  and  broken  region.  The  human  animal  delights 
in  motion  and  change,  motions  of  his  members  even 
violent,  and  swiftest  changes  of  place.  It  is  as  if  he 
would  lay  hold  of  the  infinite  by  ceaseless  abandon- 
ment and  clioice  of  a  never-abiding  stand-point,  as  if 
he  would  lay  hold  of  strength  by  the  consciousness  of 
the  strength  he  has.  He  is  full  of  unrest.  He  must 
know  what  lies  on  the  farther  shore  of  every  river,  see 
how  the  world  looks  from  every  hill :  What  is  behind  ? 
What  is  beyond  ?  is  his  constant  cry.  To  learn,  to 
gaMier  into  himself,  is  his  longing.  Nor  do  many 
years  pass  thus,  it  may  be  not  many  months,  ere  the 
world  begins  to  come  alive  around  him.  He  begins  to 
feel  that  the  stars  are  strange,  that  the  moon  is  sad, 
that  the  sunrise  is  mighty.  He  begins  to  see  in  them 
all  the  something  men  call  beauty.  He  will  lie  on  the 
sunny  bank  and  gaze  into  the  blue  heaven  till  his  soul 
seems  to  float  abroad  and  mingle  with  the  infinite  made 
visible,  with  the  boundless  condensed  into  colour  and 
shape.  The  rush  of  the  water  through  the  still  twilight, 
under  the  faint  gleam  of  the  exhausted  west,  makes  in 
his  ears  a  melody  he  is  almost  aware  he  cannot  under- 
stand. Dissatisfied  with  his  emotions  he  desires  a 
deeper  waking,  longs  for  a  greater  beauty,  is  troubled 
with  the  stirring  in  his  bosom  of  an  unknown  ideal  of 
Nature.  Nor  is  it  an  ideal  of  Nature  alone  that  is 
forming  within  him.  A  far  more  precious  thing,  a 
human  ideal  namely,  is  in  his  soul,  gathering  to  itself 
shape  and  consistency.  The  wind  that  at  night  fills 
him  with  sadness — he  cannot  tell  why,  in  the  daytime 


50  i:n-dividual  development. 

haunts  him  like  a  wild  consciousness  of  strength  which 
has  neither  difficulty  nor  danger  enough  to  spend  itself 
upon.  He  would  he  a  champion  of  the  weak,  a  friend 
to  the  great ;  for  hoth  he  would  fight— a  merciless  foe 
to  every  oppressor  of  his  kind.  Pie  would  be  rich  that 
he  might  help,  strong  that  he  might  rescue,  brave — 
that  he  counts  himself  aheady,  for  he  has  not  proved 
his  own  weakness.  In  the  first  encounter  he  fails,  and 
the  hitter  cup  of  shame  and  confusion  of  face,  whole- 
some and  saving,  is  handed  him  from  the  well  of  life. 
He  is  not  yet  capable  of  understanding  that  one  such  as 
he,  filled  with  the  glory  and  not  the  duty  of  victory, 
could  not  but  fail,  and  therefore  ought  to  fail ;  but  his 
dismay  and  chagrin  are  soothed  by  the  forgetfulness 
the  days  and  nights  bring,  gently  wiping  out  the  sins 
that  are  past,  that  the  young  life  may  have  a  fresh 
chance,  as  we  say,  and  begin  again  unburdened  by  the 
weight  of  a  too  much  present  failure. 

And  now,  probably  at  school,  or  in  the  first  months 
of  his  college- life,  a  new  phase  of  experience  begins. 
He  has  wandered  over  the  border  of  what  is  commonly 
called  science,  and  the  marvel  of  facts  multitudinous, 
strungupon  the  golden  threads  of  law,  has  laid  hold  upon 
him.  His  intellect  is  seized  and  possessed  by  a  new  spirit. 
For  a  time  knowledge  is  pride ;  the  mere  consciousness 
of  knowing  is  the  reward  of  its  labour;  the  ever 
recurring,  ever  passing  contact  of  mind  with  a  new  fact 
is  a  joy  full  of  excitement,  and  promises  an  endless 
delight.  But  ever  the  thing  that  is  known  sinks  into 
insignificance,  save  as  a  step  of  the  endless  stair  on 
which  he  la  climbing — whither  he  knows  not;   the 


INDIVIDUAL    DEVELOPMENT.  61 

unknown  draws  him ;  the  new  fact  touches  his  miud, 
flames  up  in  the  contact,  and  drops  dark,  a  mere  fact, 
on  the  heap  helow.  Even  the  grandeur  of  law  as  law, 
so  far  from  adding  fresh  consciousness  to  his  life, 
causes  it  no  small  suffering  and  loss.  For  at  the 
entrance  of  Science,  nobly  and  gracefully  as  she  bears 
herself,  young  Poetry  shrinks  back  startled,  dismayed. 
Poetry  is  true  as  Science,  and  Science  is  holy  as  Poetry  ; 
but  young  Poetry  is  timid  and  Science  is  fearless,  and 
bears  with  her  a  colder  atmosphere  than  the  other  has 
yet  learned  to  brave.  It  is  not  that  ^Fadam  Science 
shows  any  antagonism  to  Lady  Poetry  ;  but  the  atmo- 
sphere and  plane  on  which  alone  they  can  meet  as 
friends  who  understand  each  other,  is  the  mind  and 
heart  of  the  sage,  not  of  the  boy.  The  youth  gazes  on 
the  face  of  Science,  cold,  clear,  beautiful ;  then,  turn- 
ing, looks  for  his  friend — but,  alas  !  Poetry  has  fled. 
With  a  great  pang  at  the  heart  he  rushes  abroad  to 
find  her,  but  descries  only  the  rainbow  glimmer  of  her 
skirt  on  the  far  horizon.  At  night,  in  his  dreams,  she 
returns,  but  never  for  a  season  may  he  look  on  her  face 
of  loveliness.  What,  alas  !  have  evaporation,  caloric, 
atmosphere,  refraction,  the  prism,  and  the  second 
planet  of  our  system,  to  do  with  "  sad  Hesper  o'er  the 
buried  sun  1"  From  quantitative  analysis  how  shall 
he  turn  again  to  "  the  rime  of  the  ancient  mariner," 
and  "  the  moving  moon  "  that  "  went  up  the  sky,  and 
nowhere  did  abide  "  ?  From  his  window  he  gazes  across 
the  sands  to  the  mightily  troubled  ocean:  "What  is 
the  storm  to  me  any  more  !  "  he  cries  ;  "it  is  but  the 
clashing  of  countless  water-drops  1"  He  finds  relief  in 
B  2 


52  INDIVIDUAL   DEVELOPMENT. 

the  discovery  that,  the  moment  you  place  man  in  the 
midst  of  it,  the  clashing  of  water-drops  hecomes  a 
storm,  terrible  to  heart  and  brain :  human  thought 
and  feeling,  hope,  fear,  love,  sacrifice,  make  the 
motions  of  nature  alive  with  mystery  and  the 
shadows  of  destiny.  The  relief,  however,  is  but 
partial,  and  may  be  but  temporary ;  for  what  if  this 
mingling  of  man  and  Nature  in  the  mind  of  man  be  but 
the  casting  of  a  coloured  shadow  over  her  cold  indif- 
ference? What  if  she  means  nothing  — never  was 
meant  to  mean  anything  !  What  if  in  truth  "  we 
receive  but  what  we  give,  and  in  our  life  alone  doth 
Nature  live  ! "  What  if  the  language  of  metaphysics 
as  well  as  of  poetry  be  drawn,  not  from  Nature  at  all, 
but  from  human  fancy  concerning  her  ! 

At  length,  from  the  unknown,  whence  himself  he 
came,  appears  an  angel  to  deliver  him  from  this  horror 
— this  stony  look — ah,  God !  of  soulless  law.  The 
woman  is  on  her  way  whose  part  it  is  to  meet  him  with 
a  life  other  than  his  own,  at  once  the  complement  of 
his,  and  the  visible  presentment  of  that  in  it  which  is 
beyond  his  owu  understanding.  The  enchantment  of 
what  we  specially  call  love  is  upon  him — a  deceiving 
glamour,  say  some,  showing  what  is  not,  an  opening  of 
the  eyes,  say  others,  revealing  that  of  which  a  man  had 
not  been  aware :  men  will  still  be  divided  into  those 
who  believe  that  the  horses  of  fire  and  the  chariots  of  fire 
are  ever  present  at  their  need  of  them,  and  those  who 
class  the  prophet  and  the  drunkard  in  the  same  cate- 
gory as  the  fools  of  their  own  fancies.  But  what  this 
love  is,  he  who  thinks  he  knows  least  understands. 


INDIVIDUAL    DEVELOPMENT.  63 

Let  foolish  maidens  and  vulgar  youths  simper  and  jest 
over  it  as  they  please,  it  is  one  of  the  most  potent 
mysteries  of  the  living  God.  The  man  who  can  love 
a  woman  and  remain  a  lover  of  his  wretched  self,  is  fit 
only  to  he  cast  out  with  the  broken  potsherds  of  the 
city,  as  one  in  whom  the  very  salt  has  lost  its  savour. 
"With  this  love  in  his  heart,  a  man  puts  on  at  least  the 
vision  robes  of  the  seer,  if  not  the  singing  robes  of  the 
poet.  Be  he  the  paltriest  human  animal  that  ever 
breathed,  for  the  time,  and  in  his  degree,  he  rises  above 
himself.  His  nature  so  far  clarifies  itself,  that  here  and 
there  a  truth  of  the  great  world  will  penetrate,  sorely 
dimmed,  through  the  fog-laden,  self-shadoAved  atmo- 
sphere of  his  microcosm.  For  the  time,  I  repeat,  he  is 
not  a  lover  only,  but  something  of  a  friend,  with  a 
reflex  touch  of  his  own  far-ofi"  childhood.  To  the  youth 
of  my  history,  in  the  light  of  his  love — a  light  that 
passes  outward  from  the  eyes  of  the  lover — the  world 
grows  alive  again,  yea  radiant  as  an  infinite  face.  He 
sees  the  flowers  as  he  saw  them  in  boyhood,  recovering 
from  an  illness  of  all  the  winter,  only  they  have  a  yet 
deeper  glow,  a  yet  fresher  delight,  a  yet  more  unspeak- 
able soul.  He  becomes  pitiful  over  them,  and  not 
willingly  breaks  their  stems,  to  hurt  the  life  he  more 
than  half  believes  they  share  with  him.  He  cannot 
think  anything  created  only  for  him,  any  more  than 
only  for  itself.  Nature  is  no  longer  a  mere  contention 
of  forces,  whose  heaven  and  whose  hell  in  one  is  the 
dull  peace  of  an  equilibrium  ;  but  a  struggle,  through 
splendour  of  colour,  graciousness  of  form,  and  evasive 
vitality  of  motion  and  sound,  after  an  utterance  hard  to 


54  INDIVIDUAL    DEVELOPMENT. 

find,  and  never  found  but  marred  by  the  imperfection 
of  the  small  and  weak  that  would  embody  and  set  forth 
the  great  and  mighty.  The  waving  of  the  tree-tops  is 
the  billowy  movement  of  a  hidden  delight.  The  sun 
lifts  his  head  with  intent  to  be  glorious.  No  day  lasts 
too  long,  no  night  comes  too  soon  :  the  twilight  is 
woven  of  shadowy  arms  that  draw  the  loving  to  the 
bosom  of  the  Night.  In  the  woman,  the  infinite  after 
which  he  thirsts  is  given  him  for  his  own. 

Man's  occupation  with  himself  turns  his  eyes  from 
the  great  life  beyond  his  threshold  :  when  love  awakes, 
he  forgets  hiuiself  for  a  time,  and  many  a  glimpse  of 
strange  truth  finds  its  way  through  his  windows, 
blocked  no  longer  by  the  shadow  of  himself.  He  may 
now  catch  even  a  glimpse  of  the  possibilities  of  his 
own  being — may  dimly  perceive  for  a  moment  the 
image  after  which  he  was  made.  But  alas  !  too  soon, 
self,  radiant  of  darkness,  awakes;  every  window  be- 
comes opaque  with  shadow,  and  the  man  is  again  a 
prisoner.  For  it  is  not  the  highest  word  alone  that  the 
cares  of  this  world,  the  deceitfulness  of  riches,  and  the 
lust  of  other  things  entering  in,  choke,  and  render 
unfruitful.  Waking  from  the  divine  vision,  if  that  can 
be  called  waking  which  is  indeed  dying  into  the 
common  day,  the  common  man  regards  it  straightway 
as  a  foolish  dream ;  the  wise  man  believes  in  it  still, 
holds  fast  by  the  memory  of  the  vanished  glory,  and 
looks  to  have  it  one  day  again  a  present  portion  of  the 
light  of  his  life.  He  knows  that,  because  of  the  imper- 
fection and  dulness  and  weakness  of  his  nature,  after 
every  vision  follow  the  inclosing  clouds,  with  the  threat 


INDIVIDUAL    DEVELOPMENT.  65 

of  an  ever  during  dark ;  knows  that,  even  if  the  vision 
could  tarry,  it  were  not  well,  for  the  sake  of  that  which 
must  yet  be  done  with  him,  yet  be  made  of  him,  that 
it  should  tarry.  But  the  youth  whose  history  I  am 
following  is  not  like  the  former,  nor  as  yet  like  the 
latter. 

From  whatever  cause,  then,  whether  of  fault,  of 
natural  law,  or  of  supernal  will,  the  flush  that  seemed 
to  promise  the  dawn  of  an  eternal  day,  shrinks  and 
fades,  though,  with  him,  like  the  lagging  skirt  of  the 
sunset  in  the  northern  west,  it  does  not  vanish,  but 
travels  on,  a  withered  pilgrim,  all  the  night,  at  the  long 
last  to  rise  the  aureole  of  the  eternal  Aurora.  And  now 
new  paths  entice  him— or  old  paths  opening  fresh 
horizons.  With  stronger  thews  and  keener  nerves  he 
turns  again  to  the  visible  around  him.  The  change- 
lessness  amid  change,  the  law  amid  seeming  disorder, 
the  unity  amid  units,  draws  him  again.  He  begins  to 
descry  the  indwelling  poetry  of  science.  The  untiring 
forces  at  work  in  measurable  yet  inconceivable  spaces 
of  time  and  room,  fill  his  soul  with  an  awe  that 
threatens  to  uncreate  him  with  a  sense  of  littleness ; 
while,  on  the  other  side,  the  grandeur  of  their  opera- 
tions fills  him  with  such  an  informing  glory,  the  mere 
presence  of  the  mighty  facts,  that  he  no  more  thinks  of 
himself,  but  in  humility  is  great,  and  knows  it  not. 
Rapt  spectator,  seer  entranced  under  the  magic  wand  of 
Science,  he  beholds  the  billions  of  billions  of  miles  of 
incandescent  vapour  begin  a  slow,  scarce  perceptible 
revolution,  gradually  grow  swift,  and  gather  an  awful 
speed.     He  sees  the  vapour,  as  it  whirls,  condensing 


66  INDIVIDUAL    DEVELOPMENT. 

through  slow  eternities  to  a  plastic  fluidity.  He  notes 
ring  after  ring  part  from  the  circumference  of  the  mass, 
break,  rush  together  into  a  globe,  and  the  glowing  ball 
keep  on  through  space  with  the  speed  of  its  parent 
bulk.  It  cools  and  still  cools  and  condenses,  but  still 
fiercely  glows.  Presently — after  tens  of  thousands  of 
years  is  the  GieativQ  presently — arises  fierce  contention 
betwixt  the  glowing  heart  and  its  accompanying  atmo- 
sphere. The  latter  invades  the  former  with  antagonis- 
tic element.  He  listens  in  his  soul,  and  hears  the  rush 
of  ever  descending  torrent  rains,  with  the  continuous 
roaring  shock  of  their  evanishment  in  vapour — to  turn 
again  to  water  in  the  higher  regions,  and  again  rush  to 
the  attack  upon  the  citadel  of  fire.  He  beholds  the 
slow  victory  of  the  water  at  last,  and  the  great  globe, 
now  glooming  in  a  cloak  of  darkness,  covered  with  a 
wildly  boiling  sea — not  boiling  by  figure  of  speech, 
under  contending  forces  of  wind  and  tide,  but  boiling 
high  as  the  hills  to  come,  with  veritable  heat.  He  sees 
the  rise  of  the  wrinkles  we  call  hills  and  mountains, 
and  from  their  sides  the  avalanches  of  water  to  the 
lower  levels.  He  sees  race  after  race  of  living  things 
appear,  as  the  earth  becomes,  for  each  new  and  higher 
kind,  a  passing  home ;  and  he  watches  the  succession 
of  terrible  convulsions  dividing  kind  from  kind,  until 
at  length  the  kind  he  calls  his  own  arrives.  Endless 
are  the  visions  of  material  grandeur  unfathomable, 
awaked  in  his  soul  by  the  bare  facts  of  external 
existence. 

But  soon  comes  a  change.     So  far  as  he  can  see  or 
leam,  all  the  motion,  all  the  seeming  dance,  is  but  a 


INDIVIDUAL    DEVELOPMENT.  67 

msli  for  death,  a  panic  flight  into  the  moveless  silence. 
The  summer  wind,  the  tropic  tornado,  the  softest  tide, 
the  fiercest  storm,  are  alike  the  tumultuous  conflict  of 
forces,  rushing,  and  fighting  as  they  rush,  into  the  arms 
of  eternal  negation.  On  and  on  they  hurry — down  and 
down,  to  a  cold  stirless  solidity,  where  wind  blows  not, 
water  flows  not,  where  the  seas  are  not  merely  tideless 
and  beat  no  shores,  but  frozen  cleave  with  frozen  roots 
to  their  gulfy  basin.  All  things  are  on  the  steep- 
sloping  path  to  final  evanishment,  uncreation,  non- 
existence. He  is  filled  with  horror — not  so  much  of 
the  dreary  end,  as  at  the  weary  hopelessness  of  the 
path  thitherward.  Then  a  dim  light  breaks  upon  him, 
and  with  it  a  faint  hope  revives,  for  he  seems  to  see  in 
all  the  forms  of  life,  innumerably  varied,  a  spirit 
rushing  upward  from  death — a  something  in  escape 
from  the  terror  of  the  downward  cataract,  of  the  rest 
that  knows  not  peace.  "  Is  it  not,"  he  asks,  "  the 
soaring  of  the  silver  dove  of  life  from  its  potsherd-bed 
— the  heavenward  flight  of  some  higher  and  incorrup- 
tible thing  ?  Is  not  vitality,  revealed  in  growth,  itself 
an  unending  resurrection  ? " 

The  vision  also  of  the  oneness  of  the  universe,  ever 
reappearing  through  the  vapours  of  question,  helps  to 
keep  hope  alive  in  him.  To  find,  for  instance,  the  law 
of  the  relation  of  the  arrangements  of  the  leaves  on  dif- 
fering plants,  correspond  to  the  law  of  the  relative  dis- 
tances of  the  planets  in  approach  to  their  central  sun, 
wakes  in  him  that  hope  of  a  central  Will,  which  alone 
can  justify  one  ecstatic  throb  at  any  seeming  loveliness 
of  the  universe.    For  without  the  hope  of  such  a  centre, 


5S  INDIVIDTJAL    DEVELOPMENT. 

delight  is  unreason — a  mockery  not  such  as  the  skele- 
ton at  the  Egyptian  feast,  hut  such  rather  as  a  crowned 
corpse  at  a  feast  of  skeletons.  Life  without  the  higher 
glory  of  the  unspeakable,  the  atmosphere  of  a  God,  is 
not  life,  is  not  worth  living.  He  would  rather  cease  to 
be,  than  walk  the  dull  level  of  the  commonplace — than 
live  the  unideal  of  men  in  whose  company  he  can  take 
no  pleasure — men  who  are  as  of  a  lower  race,  whom  he 
fain  would  lift,  who  will  not  rise,  but  for  whom  as  for 
himself  he  would  cherish  the  hope  they  do  their  best 
to  kill.  Those  who  seem  to  him  great,  recognize  the 
unseen — believe  the  roots  of  science  to  be  therein  hid — 
regard  the  bringing  forth  into  sight  of  the  things  that 
are  invisible  as  the  end  of  all  Art  and  every  art— judge 
the  true  leader  of  men  to  be  him  who  leads  them  closer 
to  the  essential  facts  of  their  being.  Alas  for  his  love 
and  his  hope,  alas  for  himself,  if  the  visible  should 
exist  for  its  own  sake  only  ! — if  the  face  of  a  flower 
means  nothing — appeals  to  no  region  beyond  the  scope 
of  the  science  that  would  unveil  its  growth.  He  can- 
not believe  that  its  structure  exists  for  the  sake  of  its 
laws ;  that  would  be  to  build  for  the  sake  of  its  joints 
a  scafi'old  where  no  house  was  to  stand.  Those  who 
put  their  faith  in  Science  are  trying  to  live  in  the 
scaffold  of  the  house  invisible. 

He  finds  harbour  and  comfort  at  times  in  the  written 
poetry  of  his  fellows.  He  delights  in  analyzing  and 
grasping  the  thought  that  informs  the  utterance.  For 
a  moment,  the  fine  figure,  the  delicate  phrase,  make 
him  jubilant  and  strong ;  but  the  jubilation  and  the 
strength  soon  pass,  for  it  is  not  any  of  the /orm^  even 


INDIVIDUAL    DEVELOPMENT.  69 

of  the  thought-forms  of  truth  that  can  give  rest  to  his 
soul. 

History  attracts  him  little,  for  he  is  not  able  to  dis- 
cover by  its  records  the  operation  of  principles  yielding 
hope  for  his  race.  Such  there  may  be,  but  he  does  not 
find  them.  What  hope  for  the  rising  wave  that  knows 
in  its  rise  only  its  doom  to  sink,  and  at  length  be 
dashed  on  the  low  shore  of  annihilation  ] 

But  the  time  would  fail  me  to  follow  the  doubling 
of  the  soul  coursed  by  the  hounds  of  Death,  or  to 
set  down  the  forms  innumerable  in  which  the  golden 
Haemony  springs  in  its  path, 

Of  sovran  use 
'Grainst  all  enchantments,  mildew  blast,  or  damp. 

And  now  the  shadows  are  beginning  to  lengthen 
towards  the  night,  which,  whether  there  be  a  following 
morn  or  no,  is  the  night,  and  spreads  out  the  wings  of 
darkness.  And  still  as  it  approaches  the  more  aware 
grows  the  man  of  a  want  that  differs  from  any  feeling 
I  have  already  sought  to  describe — a  sense  of  insecurity, 
in  no  wise  the  same  as  the  doubt  of  life  beyond  the 
grave — a  need  more  profound  even  than  that  which 
cries  for  a  living  Nature.  And  now  he  plainly  knows, 
that,  all  his  life,  like  a  conscious  duty  unfulfillod,  this 
sense  has  haunted  his  path,  ever  and  anon  descending 
and  clinging,  a  cold  mist,  about  his  heart.  What  if 
this  lack  was  indeed  the  root  of  every  other  anxiety  ! 
IS"ow  freshly  revived,  this  sense  of  not  having,  of  some- 
thing, he  knows  not  what,  for  lack  of  which  his  being 
is  in  pain  at  its  own  incompleteness,  never  leaves  him 


60  IISTDIVIDUAL    DEVELOPMENT. 

more.  And  with  it  the  terror  has  returned  and  grows, 
lest  there  should  be  no  Unseen  Power,  as  his  fathers 
believed,  and  his  mother  taught  him,  filling  all  things 
and  meaning  all  things,— no  Power  with  whom,  in  his 
last  extremity,  awaits  him  a  final  refuge.  With  the 
quickening  doubt  falls  a  tenfold  blight  on  the  world 
of  poetry,  both  that  in  INTature  and  that  in  books.  Far 
worse  than  that  early  chill  which  the  assertions  of 
science  concerning  what  it  knows,  cast  upon  his  in- 
experienced soul,  is  now  the  shivering  death  which  its 
pretended  denials  concerning  what  it  knows  not,  send 
through  all  his  vital  frame.  The  soul  departs  from  the 
face  of  beauty,  when  the  eye  begins  to  doubt  if  there 
be  any  soul  behind  it ;  and  now  the  man  feels  like  one 
I  knew,  affected  with  a  strange  disease,  who  saw  in  the 
living  face  always  the  face  of  a  corpse.  What  can  the 
world  be  to  him  who  lives  for  thought,  if  there  be  no 
supreme  and  perfect  Thought, —none  but  such  poor 
struggles  after  thought  as  he  fia:ids  in  himself  %  Take 
the  eternal  thought  from  the  heart  of  things,  no  longer 
can  any  beauty  be  real,  no  more  can  shape,  motion, 
aspect  of  nature  have  significance  in  itself,  or  sympathy 
with  human  soul.  At  best  and  most  the  beauty  he 
thought  he  saw  was  but  the  projected  perfection  of  his 
own  being,  and  from  himself  as  the  crown  and  summit 
of  things,  the  soul  of  the  man  shrinks  with  horror  :  it 
is  the  more  imperfect  being  who  knows  the  least  his 
incompleteness,  and  for  whom,  seeing  so  little  beyond 
himself,  it  is  easiest  to  imagine  himself  the  heart  and 
apex  of  things,  and  rejoice  in  the  fancy.  The  killing 
power  of  a  godless   science  leturns  upou  him  with 


IXDIVIDl'AL    DEYELOrMEXT.  61 

tenfold  force.  The  ocean-tempest  is  once  more  a  mere 
clashing  of  innumerable  water-drops;  the  green  and 
amber  sadness  of  the  evening  sky  is  a  mockery  of 
sorrow ;  his  own  soul  and  its  sadness  is  a  mockery  of 
himself "  There  is  nothing  in  the  sadness,  nothing  in 
the  mockery.  To  tell  him  as  comfort,  that  in  his  own 
thought  lives  the  meaning  if  nowhere  else,  is  mockery 
worst  of  all ;  for  if  there  be  no  truth  in  them,  if  these 
things  be  no  embodiment,  to  make  them  serve  as  such 
is  to  put  a  candle  in  a  deatli's  head  to  light  the  dying 
through  the  place  of  tombs.  To  his  former  foolish 
fancy  a  piimrose  might  preach  a  childlike  trust ;  the 
untoiling  lilies  might  from  their  field  ca8t  seeds  of  a 
higher  growth  into  his  troubled  heart ;  now  they  are 
no  better  than  the  colour  the  painter  leaves  behind  liim 
on  the  door[)Ost  of  his  workshop,  when,  the  day's 
labour  over,  he  wipes  his  brush  on  it  ere  he  depart  for 
the  night.  The  look  in  the  eyes  of  his  dog,  hap[)y  in 
that  he  is  short-lived,  is  one  of  infinite  sadness.  All 
graciousness  must  henceforth  be  a  sorrow :  it  has  to  go 
with  the  sunsets.  That  a  thing  must  cease  takes  from 
it  the  joy  of  even  an  aionian  endurance — for  its  kind 
is  mortal ;  it  belongs  to  the  nature  of  things  that 
cannot  live.  The  sorrow  is  not  so  much  that  it  shall 
perish  as  that  it  could  not  live — that  it  is  not  in  its 
nature  a  real,  that  is,  an  eternal  thing.  His  children 
are  shadows—  their  life  a  dance,  a  sickness,  a  corruption. 
The  very  element  of  unselfishness,  which,  however 
feeble  and  beclouded  it  may  be,  yet  exists  in  all  love, 
in  giving  life  its  only  dignity  adds  to  its  sorrow. 
Nowhere  at  the  root  of  things  is  love — it  is  only  a 


62  INDIVIDUAL    DEVELOPMENT. 

something  that  came  after,  some  sort  of  fungous  f  ;c 
crescence  in  the  hearts  of  men  grown  helplessly 
superior  to  their  origin.  Law,  nothing  but  cold,  im- 
passive, material  law,  is  the  root  of  things — lifeless 
happily,  so  not  knowing  itself,  else  were  it  a  demon 
instead  of  a  creative  nothing.  Endeavour  is  paralyzed 
in  him.  "  Work  for  posterity,"  says  he  of  the  skyless 
philosophy ;  answers  the  man,  "  How  can  I  work 
without  hope  1  Little  heart  have  I  to  labour,  where 
labour  is  so  little  help.  What  can  I  do  for  my  chil- 
dren that  would  render  their  life  less  hopeless  than 
my  own  !  Give  me  all  you  would  secure  for  them, 
and  my  life  would  be  to  me  but  the  worse  mockery. 
The  true  end  of  labour  would  be,  to  lessen  the  number 
doomed  to  breathe  the  breath  of  this  despair." 

Straightway  he  developes  another  and  a  deeper  mood. 
He  turns  and  regards  himself.  Suspicion  or  sudden 
insight  has  directed  the  look.  And  there,  in  himself, 
he  discovers  such  imperfection,  such  wrong,  such  shame, 
such  weakness,  as  cause  him  to  cry  out,  "  It  were  well 
I  should  cease  !  Why  should  I  mourn  after  life  ? 
Where  were  the  good  of  prolonging  it  in  a  being  like 
mel  *  What  should  such  fellows  as  I  do  crawling 
between  heaven  and  earth  ! ' "  Such  insights,  when 
they  come,  the  seers  do  their  best,  in  general,  to 
obscure;  suspicion  of  themselves  they  regard  as  a 
monster,  and  would  stifle.  They  resent  the  waking 
of  such  doubt.  Any  attempt  at  the  raising  in  them 
of  their  buried  best  they  regard  as  an  offence  against 
intercourse.  A  man  takes  his  social  life  in  his  hand 
who  dares  it.     Few  therefore  understand  the  judgment 


INDIVIDUAL    ])I-:\  ri."PMT:XT 


63 


of   Hamlet  upon  himself;    the  common  reader  is  so 
incapable  of  imagining  he  could  mean  it  of  his  own 
general  character  as   a   man,  that   he   attributes   tlie 
utterance  to  shame  for  the  postponement  of  a  vengeance, 
which  indeed  he  must  have  been  such  as  his  critic  to 
be  capable  of  performing  upon  no  better  proof  than  he 
had  yet  had.     When  the  man  whose  unfolding  I  would 
now  represent,  regards  even  his  dearest  love,  he  finds 
it  such  a  poor,  selfish,  low-lived  thing,   that  in  his 
heart  he  shames  himself  before   his  cliildren  and  his 
friends.     How  little  labour,  how  little  watching,  how 
little  pain  has  he  endured  for  their  sakes  !     He  reads 
of  great  things  in  this  kind,  but  in  himself  he  does  not 
find  them.     How  often  has  he  not  been  wrongfully 
displeased — wrathful  with  the  innocent  !     How  often 
has  he  not  hurt  a  heart  more  tender  than  his  own ! 
Has  he  ever  once  been  faithful  to  the  height  of  his 
ideal  1     Is  his  life  on  the  whole  a  thing  to  regard  with 
complacency,  or  to  be  troubled  exceedingly  concerning  1 
Beyond  him  rise  and  spread  infinite  seeming  possi- 
bilities— height   beyou'l  height,  glory  beyond   glory, 
each  rooted  in  and  rising  from  his  conscious  being,  but 
alas !  where  is  any  hope  of  ascending  them  1     These 
hills  of  peace,  "  in  a  season  of  calm  weather,"  seem  to 
surround  and  infold  him,  as  a  land  in  which  he  could 
dwell  at  ease  and  at  home  :  surely  among  them  lies  the 
place  of   his  birth  ! — while  against  their  purity  and 
grandeur  the  being  of  his  consciousness  shows  miserable 
* — dark,  weak,  and  undefined — a  shadow  that  would 
fain  be  substance — a  dream  that  would  gladly  be  born 
into  the  light  of  reality.     But  alas  if  the  whole  thing 


64  INDIVIDUAL    DEVELOPMENT. 

be  only  in  himself — if  the  vision  be  a  dream  of 
nothing,  a  revelation  of  lies,  the  outcome  of  that 
which,  helplessly  existent,  is  yet  not  created,  therefore 
cannot  create — if  not  the  whole  thing  only  be  a  dream 
of  the  impotent,  but  the  impotent  be  himself  but  a 
dream — a  dream  of  his  own — a  self-dreamed  dream — 
with  no  master  of  dreams  to  whom  to  cry  !  Where 
then  the  cherished  hope  of  one  day  atoning  for  liis 
wrongs  to  those  who  loved  him  ! — they  are  nowhere — 
vanished  for  ever,  upmingled  and  dissolved  in  the 
primeval  darkness !  If  truth  be  but  the  hollow  of  a 
sphere,  ah,  never  shall  he  cast  himself  before  them,  to 
tell  them  that  now  at  last,  after  long  years  of  revealing 
separation,  he  knows  himself  and  them,  and  that  now 
the  love  of  them  is  a  part  of  his  very  being — to  implore 
their  forgiveness  on  the  ground  that  he  hates,  despises, 
contemns,  and  scorns  the  self  that  showed  them  less 
than  absolute  love  and  devotion  !  Never  thus  shall 
he  lay  his  being  bare  to  their  eyes  of  love  !  They  do 
not  even  rest,  for  they  do  not  and  will  not  know  it. 
There  is  no  voice  nor  hearing  in  them,  and  how  can 
there  be  in  him  any  heart  to  live  !  The  one  comfort 
left  him  is,  that,  unable  to  follow  them,  he  shall  yet 
die  and  cease,  and  fare  as  they — go  also  no  whither  ! 

To  a  man  under  the  dismay  of  existence  dissociated 
from  power,  unrooted  in,  unshadowed  by  a  creating 
Will,  who  is  Love,  the  Father  of  Man — to  him  who 
knows  not  being  and  God  together,  the  idea  of  death — 
a  death  that  knows  no  reviving,  must  be,  and  ought  to 
be  the  blessedest  thought  left  him.  "0  land  of 
•hadows  1  **  well  may  such  a  one  cry  I  "  land  where 


rNTHVIDUAL  DEVELOPMENT,         66 

the  shadows  love  to  ecstatic  self-loss,  yet  forget,  and 
love  no  more  !  land  of  sorrows  and  despairs,  that  sink 
the  soul  into  a  deeper  Tophet  than  death  has  ever 
sounded  !  broken  kaleidoscope  !  shaken  camera  !  pro- 
miser,  speaking  truth  to  the  ear,  but  lying  to  the 
sense  !  land  where  the  heart  of  my  friend  is  sorrowful 
as  my  heart — the  more  sorrowful  that  I  have  been  but 
a  poor  and  far-off  friend  !  land  where  sin  is  strong  and 
righteousness  faint !  where  love  dreams  mightily  and 
walks  abroad  so  feeble !  land  where  the  face  of  my 
father  is  dust,  and  the  hand  of  my  mother  will  never 
more  caress!  where  my  children  will  spend  a  few 
years  of  like  trouble  to  mine,  and  then  drop  from  the 
dream  into  the  no- dream !  gladly,  0  land  of  sickliest 
shadows — gladly,  that  is,  with  what  power  of  gladness 
is  in  me,  I  take  my  leave  of  thee  !  Welcome  the  cold, 
pain-soothing  embrace  of  immortal  Death  !  Hideous 
are  his  looks,  but  I  love  him  better  than  Life  :  he  is 
true,  and  will  not  deceive  us.  Nay,  he  only  is  our 
saviour,  setting  us  free  from  the  tyranny  of  the  false 
that  ought  to  be  true,  and  sets  us  longing  in  vain." 

But  through  all  the  man's  doubts,  fears,  and  per- 
plexities, a  certain  whisper,  say  rather,  an  uncertain 
rumour,  a  vague  legendary  murmur,  has  been  at  the 
same  time  about,  rather  than  in,  his  ears — never  ceasing 
to  haunt  his  air,  although  hitherto  he  has  hardly 
heeded  it.  He  knows  it  has  come  down  the  ages, 
and  that  some  in  every  age  have  been  more  or  less 
influenced  by  a  varied  acceptance  of  it.  Upon  those, 
however,  with  whom  he  has  chiefly  associated,  it  has 
made  no  impression  beyond   that   of   a  remarkable 

F 


60  INDIVIDUAL    DEVELOPMENT. 

legend.  It  is  tlie  story  of  a  man,  represented  as  at 
least  greater,  stronger,  and  better  than  any  other  man. 
With  the  hero  of  this  tale  he  has  had  a  constantly 
recurring,  though  altogether  undefined  suspicion  that 
he  has  something  to  do.  It  is  strongest,  though  not 
even  then  strong,  at  such  times  when  he  is  most  aware 
of  evil  and  imperfection  in  himself.  Betwixt  the  two, 
tlie  idea  of  this  man  and  his  knowledge  of  himself, 
seems  to  lie,  dim-shadowy,  some  imperative  duty.  He 
knows  that  the  whole  matter  concerning  the  man  is 
commemorated  in  many  of  the  oldest  institutions  of 
his  country,  but  up  to  this  time  he  Jjas  shrunk  from 
the  demands  which,  by  a  kind  of  spiritual  insight,  he 
foresaw  would  follow,  were  he  once  to  admit  certain 
things  to  be  true.  He  has,  however,  known  some  and 
read  of  more  who  by  their  faith  in  the  man  conquered 
all  anxiety,  doubt,  and  fear,  lived  pure,  and  died  in 
gladsome  hope.  On  the  other  hand,  it  seems  to  him 
that  the  faith  which  was  once  easy  has  now  become 
almost  an  impossibility.  And  what  is  it  he  is  called 
upon  to  believe  'i  One  says  one  thing,  another  another. 
Much  that  is  asserted  is  simply  unworthy  of  belief,  and 
the  foundation  of  the  whole  has  in  his  eyes  something 
of  the  look  of  a  cunningly  devised  fable.  Even  should 
it  be  true,  it  cannot  help  him,  he  thinks,  for  it  does 
not  even  touch  the  things  that  make  his  woe  :  the  God 
the  tale  presents  is  not  the  being  whose  very  existence 
can  alone  be  his  cure. 

But  he  meets  one  who  says  to  him,  "  Have  you 
then  come  to  your  time  of  life,  and  not  yet  ceased  to 
accept  hearsay  as  ground  of  action — for  there  is  action 


INDIVIDUxVL    DKVELOrilEXT.  67 

ir.  abstaining  as  well  as  in  doing  ?  Suppose  the  man  in 
question  to  have  taken  all  possible  pains  to  be  under- 
stood, does  it  follow  of  necessity  that  he  is  now  or 
ever  was  fairly  represented  by  the  bulk  of  his  fol- 
lowers ?  With  such  a  moral  distance  between  him  and 
them  J  is  it  possible  ? " 

**  But  the  whole  thing  has  from  first  to  last  a  strange 
aspect !  "  our  thinker  replies. 

"As  to  the  Ictst  that  is  not  yet  come.  And  as  to  its 
aspect^  its  reality  must  be  such  as  human  eye  could 
never  convey  to  reading  heart.  Every  human  idea  of 
it  must  be  more  or  less  wrong.  And  yet  perhaps  the 
truer  the  aspect  the  stranger  it  would  be.  But  is  it 
not  just  with  ordinary  things  you  are  dissatisfied  ? 
And  should  not  therefore  the  very  strangeness  of  these 
to  you  little  better  than  rumours  incline  you  to  examine 
the  object  of  them  ?  Will  you  assert  that  nothing 
strange  can  have  to  do  with  human  affairs  %  Much  that 
was  once  scarce  credible  is  now  so  ordinary  that  men 
have  grown  stupid  to  the  wonder  inherent  in  it. 
Nothing  around  you  serves  your  need  :  try  what  is  at 
least  of  another  class  of  phenomena.  What  if  the 
things  rumoured  belong  to  a  more  natural  order  than 
these,  lie  nearer  the  roots  of  your  dissatisfied  existence, 
and  look  strange  only  because  you  have  hitherto  been 
living  in  the  outer  court,  not  in  the  penetralia,  of  life  ? 
The  rumour  has  been  vital  enough  to  float  down  the 
ages,  emerging  from  every  storm:  why  not  see  for 
yourself  what  may  be  in  it  ?  So  powerful  an  influence 
on  human  history,  surely  there  will  be  found  in  it 
signs  by  which  to  determine  whether  the  man  under- 
F  2 


68  INDIVIDUAL   DEVELOPMENT. 

stood  himself  and  his  message,  or  owed  his  apparent 
greatness  to  the  deluded  worship  of  his  followers! 
That  he  has  always  had  foolish  followers  none  will 
eiy^,  aul  none  but  a  fool  would  judge  any  leader 
from  such  a  fact.  "Wisdom  as  well  as  folly  will  serve 
a  fool's  purpose ;  he  turns  all  into  folly.  I  say  nothing 
now  of  my  own  conclusions,  because  what  you  imagine 
my  opinions  are  as  hateful  to  me  as  to  you  disagreeable 
and  foolish." 

So  says  the  friend ;  the  man  hears,  takes  up  the  old 
story,  and  says  to  himself,  "  Let  me  see  then  what  I 
can  see ! " 

I  will  not  follow  him  through  the  many  shadows  and 
slow  dawns  by  which  at  length  he  arrives  at  this  much  : 
A  man  claiming  to  be  the  Son  of  God  says  he  has 
come  to  be  the  light  of  men  ;  says,  "  Come  to  me,  and 
I  will  give  you  rest ;"  says,  "  Follow  me,  and  you  shall 
find '  my  Father ;  to  know  him  is  the  one  thing  you 
cannot  do  without,  for  it  is  eternal  life."  He  has 
learned  from  the  reported  words  of  the  man,  and  from 
the  man  himself  as  in  the  tale  presented,  that  the  bliss 
of  his  conscious  being  is  his  Father ;  that  his  one 
delight  is  to  do  the  will  of  that  Father — the  only 
thing  in  his  eyes  worthy  of  being  done,  or  worth 
having  done ;  that  he  would  make  men  blessed  with 
his  own  blessedness ;  that  the  cry  of  creation,  the  cry 
of  humanity  shall  be  answered  into  the  deepest  soul  of 
desire ;  that  less  than  the  divine  mode  of  existence, 
the  godlike  way  of  being,  can  satisfy  no  man,  that  is, 
make  him  content  with  his  consciousness  ;  that  not  this 
world  only,  but  the  whole  universe  is  the  inheritance 


INDIVIDUAL  develop:mext.  69 

of  those  who  consent  to  be  the  children  of  their  Father 
in  heaven,  who  put  forth  the  power  of  their  will  to  be 
of  the  same  sort  as  he ;  that  to  as  many  as  receive  him 
he  gives  power  to  become  the  sons  of  God ;  that  they 
shall  be  partakers  of  the  divine  nature,  of  the  divine 
joy,  of  the  divine  power — shall  have  whatever  they 
desire,  shall  know  no  fear,  shall  love  perfectly,  and 
shall  never  die ;  that  these  things  are  beyond  the 
grasp  of  the  knowing  ones  of  the  world,  and  to  them 
the  message  will  be  a  scorn ;  but  that  the  time  will 
o.ome  when  its  truth  shall  be  apparent,  to  some  in  con- 
fusion of  face,  to  others  in  joy  unspeakable ;  only  that 
we  must  beware  of  judging,  for  many  that  are  first  shall 
be  last,  and  there  are  last  that  shall  be  first. 

To  find  himself  in  such  conscious  as  well  as  vital 
relation  with  the  source  of  his  being,  with  a  Will  by 
which  his  own  will  exists,  with  a  Consciousness  by  and 
through  which  he  is  conscious,  would  indeed  be  the 
end  of  all  the  man's  ills  !  nor  can  he  imagine  any 
other,  not  to  say  better  way,  in  which  his  sorrows  could 
be  met,  understood  and  annihilated.  For  the  ills  that 
oppress  him  are  both  within  him  and  without,  and  ovei 
each  kind  he  is  powerless.  If  the  message  were  but  a 
true  one  !  If  indeed  this  man  knew  what  he  talked  of  ! 
But  if  there  should  be  help  for  man  from  anywhere 
beyond  him,  some  one  might  know  it  first,  and  may 
not  this  be  the  one  ?  And  if  the  message  be  so  great 
so  perfect  as  this  man  asserts,  then  only  a  perfect,  an 
eternal  man,  at  home  in  the  bosom  of  the  Father,  could 
know,  or  bring,  or  tell  it.  According  to  the  tale,  it 
had  been  from  the  first  the  intent  of  the  Father  to 


70  INDIVIDUAL   DEVELOPMENT. 

reveal  himself  to  man  as  man,  for  without  the  know- 
ledge of  the  Father  after  man's  own  modes  of  being,  he 
could  not  grow  to  real  manhood.  The  grander  the 
whole  idea,  the  more  likely  is  it  to  be  what  it  claims 
to  be !  and  if  not  high  as  the  heavens  above  the  earth, 
beyond  us  yet  within  our  reach,  it  is  not  for  us,  it 
cannot  be  true.  Fact  or  not,  the  existence  of  a  God 
such  as  Christ,  a  God  who  is  a  good  man  infinitely,  is 
the  only  idea  containing  hope  enough  for  man  !  It 
such  a  God  has  come  to  ba  known,  marvel  must  sur- 
round the  first  news  at  least  of  the  revelation  of 
him.  Because  of  its  marvel,  shall  men  find  it  in  reason 
to  turn  from  the  gracious  rumour  of  what,  if  it  be  true, 
must  be  the  event  of  all  events  1  And  could  marvel 
be  lovelier  than  the  marvel  reported  1  But  the  humble 
men  of  heart  alone  can  believe  in  the  high — they  alone 
can  perceive,  they  alone  can  embrace  grandeur.  Hu- 
mility is  essential  greatness,  the  inside  of  grandeur. 

Something  of  such  truths  the  man  glimmeringly  sees. 
But  in  his  mind  awake,  thereupon,  endless  doubts  aiid 
questions.  What  if  the  whole  idea  of  his  mission  was 
a  deception  bom  of  the  very  goodness  of  the  man  ? 
What  if  the  whole  matter  was  the  invention  of  men 
pretending  themselves  the  followers  of  such  a  man  1 
What  if  it  was  a  little  truth  greatly  exaggerated  1  Only, 
be  it  what  it  may,  less  than  its  full  idea  would  not  be 
enough  for  the  wants  and  sorrows  that  weaken  and 
weigh  him  down ! 

He  passes  through  many  a  thorny  thicket  of  inquiry ; 
gathers  evidence  upon  evidence;  reasons  upon  the 
goodness  of  the    men  who  wrote :    they  might  be 


IXDIVIDUAL    DEVELOrMENT.  71 

deceived,  but  they  dared  not  invent ;  holds  with  him- 
self a  thousand  arguments,  historical,  psychical,  meta- 
physical— ^whicli  for  their  setting-forth  would  require 
volumes;  hears  many  an  opposing,  many  a  scoffing 
word  from  men  "  who  surely  know,  else  would  they 
speak?"  and  finds  himself  much  where  he  was  before. 
But  at  least  he  is  haunting  the  possible  borders  of  dis- 
covery, while  those  who  turn  their  backs  upon  the  idea 
are  divided  from  him  by  a  great  gulf — it  may  be  of 
moral  difference.  To  him  there  is  still  a  grand  auroral 
hope  about  the  idea,  and  it  still  draws  him ;  the  others, 
taking  the  thing  from  merest  report  of  opinion,  look 
anywhere  but  thitherward.  He  who  would  not  trust 
his  best  friend  to  set  forth  his  views  of  life,  accepts  the 
random  judgements  of  unknown  others  for  a  sufficing 
disposal  of  what  the  highest  of  the  race  have  regarded 
as  a  veritable  revelation  from  the  Father  of  men.  He 
sees  in  it  therefore  nothing  but  folly  ;  for  what  he  takes 
for  the  thing  nowhere  meets  his  nature.  Our  searcher 
at  least  holds  open  the  door  for  the  hearing  of  what 
voice  may  come  to  him  from  the  region  invisible :  if 
there  be  truth  there,  he  is  wdiere  it  will  find  him. 

As  he  continues  to  read  and  reflect,  the  perception 
gradually  grows  clear  in  him,  that,  if  there  be  truth  in 
the  matter,  he  must,  first  of  all,  and  beyond  all  things 
else,  give  his  best  heed  to  the  reported  words  of  the 
man  himself — to  what  he  says,  not  what  is  said  about 
him,  valuable  as  that  may  afterwards  prove  to  be.  And 
he  finds  that  concerning  these  words  of  his,  the  man 
says,  or  at  least  plainly  implies,  that  only  the  obedient, 
childlike  soul  can  understand  them.     It  follows  that  the 


72  INDIVIDUAL    DEVELOPMENT. 

judgement  of  no  man  who  does  not  obey  can  be  received 
concerning  them  or  the  speaker  of  them— that,  for 
instance,  a  man  who  hates  his  enemy,  who  tells  lies,  who 
thinks  to  serve  God  and  Mammon,  whether  he  call 
himself  a  Christian  or  no,  has  not  the  right  of  an 
opinion  concerning  the  Master  or  his  words — at  least 
in  the  eyes  of  the  Master,  however  it  may  be  in  his 
own.  This  is  in  the  very  nature  of  things :  obedience 
alone  places  a  man  in  the  position  in  which  he  can  see 
so  as  to  judge  that  which  is  above  him.  In  respect  of 
great  truths  investigation  goes  for  little,  speculation  for 
nothing ;  if  a  man  would  know  them,  he  must  obey 
^them.  Their  nature  is  such  that  the  only  door  into 
them  is  obedience.  And  the  truth-seeker  perceives — 
which  allows  him  no  loophole  of  escape  from  life — that 
what  things  the  Son  of  Man  requires  of  him,  are  either 
such  as  his  conscience  backs  for  just,  or  such  as  seem 
too  great,  too  high  for  any  man.  But  if  there  be  help 
for  him,  it  must  be  a  help  that  recognizes  the  highest 
in  him,  and  urges  him  to  its  use.  Help  cannot  come 
to  one  made  in  the  image  of  God,  save  in  the  obedient 
effort  of  what  life  and  power  are  in  him,  for  God  is 
action.  In  such  effort  alone  is  it  possible  for  need  to 
encounter  help.  It  is  the  upstretched  that  meets  the 
downstretched  hand.  He  alone  who  obeys  can  with 
confidence  pray — to  him  alone  does  an  answer  seem  a 
rhing  that  may  come.  And  should  anything  spoken 
by  the  Son  of  Man  seem  to  the  seeker  unreasonable,  he 
feels  in  the  rest  such  a  majesty  of  duty  as  compels 
him  to  judge  with  regard  to  the  other,  that  he  has  not 
yet  perceived  its  true  nature,  or  its  true  relation  to 
life. 


DTDIVIDUAL  DEVELOPMENT.  73 

And  now  comes  the  crisis  :  if  here  the  man  sets  him- 
self honestly  to  do  the  thing  the  Son  of  Man  tells  him, 
he  so,  and  so  first,  sets  out  positively  upon  the  path 
which,  if  there  be  truth  in  these  things,  will  conduct 
bim  to  a  knowledge  of  the  whole  matter  ;  not  until 
then  is  he  a  disciple.  If  the  message  be  a  true  one, 
the  condition  of  the  knowledge  of  its  truth  is  not  only 
reasonable  but  an  unavoidable  necessity.  If  there  be 
help  for  him,  how  otherways  should  it  draw  nigh  1  He 
has  to  be  assured  of  the  highest  truth  of  his  being : 
there  can  be  no  other  assurance  than  that  to  be  gained 
thus,  and  thus  alone ;  for  not  only  by  obedience  does 
a  man  come  into  such  contact  with  truth  as  to  know 
what  it  is,  and  in  regard  to  truth  knowledge  and  belief 
are  one.  That  things  which  cannot  appear  save  to  the 
eye  capable  of  seeing  them,  that  things  which  cannot 
be  recognized  save  by  the  mind  of  a  certain  develop- 
ment, should  be  examined  by  eye  incapable,  and  pro- 
nounced upon  by  mind  undeveloped,  is  absurd.  The 
deliverance  the  message  offers  is  a  change  such  that  the 
man  shall  he  the  rightness  of  which  he  talked  :  while 
his  soul  is  not  a  hungered,  athirst,  aglow,  a  groaning 
after  righteousness — that  is,  longing  to  be  himself 
honest  and  upright,  it  is  an  absurdity  that  he  should 
judge  concerning  the  way  to  this  rightness,  seeing  that, 
while  he  walks  not  in  it,  he  is  and  shall  be  a  dishonest 
man :  he  knows  not  whither  it  leads  and  how  can  he 
know  the  way  !  What  he  can  judge  of  is,  his  duty  at 
a  given  moment — and  that  not  in  the  abstract,  but  as 
something  to  be  by  him  done,  neither  more,  nor  less, 
nor  other  than  done.     Thus  judging  and  doing,  he 


74  INDIVIDUAL   DEVELOPMENT. 

makes  the  only  possible  step  nearer  to  righteousness 
and  righteous  judgement ;  doing  otherwise,  he  becomes 
the  more  unrighteous,  the  more  blind.  For  the  man 
who  knows  not  God,  whether  he  believes  there  is  a 
God  or  not,  there  can  be,  I  repeat,  no  judgement  of 
things  pertaining  to  God.  To  our  supposed  searcher, 
then,  the  crowning  word  of  the  Son  of  Man  is  this, 
"  If  any  man  is  willing  to  do  the  will  of  the  Father,  he 
shall  know  of  the  doctrine,  whether  it  be  of  God,  or 
whether  I  speak  of  myself." 

Having  thus  accompanied  my  type  to  the  borders  of 
liberty,  my  task  for  the  present  is  over.  The  rest  let 
him  who  reads  prove  for  himself.  Obedience  alone  can 
convince.  To  convince  without  obedience  I  would  take 
no  bootless  labour  ;  it  would  be  but  a  gain  for  hell.  If 
any  man  call  these  things  foolishness,  his  judgement  is 
to  me  insignificant.  If  any  man  say  he  is  open  to  con- 
viction, I  answer  him  he  can  have  none  but  on  the 
condition,  by  the  means  of  obc  ( idudf  a  man  say, 
**  The  thing  is  not  interesting  to  me,"  I  ask  him,  "  Are 
you  following  your  conscience  1  By  that,  and  not  by 
the  interest  you  take  or  do  not  take  in  a  thing,  shall 
you  be  judged.  Nor  will  anything  be  said  to  you,  or 
of  you,  in  that  day,  whatever  that  day  mean,  of  which 
your  conscience  will  not  echo  every  syllable." 

Oneness  with  God  is  the  sole  truth  of  humanity. 
Life  parted  from  its  causative  life  would  be  no  life  ;  it 
would  at  best  be  but  a  barrack  of  corruption,  an  out- 
post of  annihilation.  In  proportion  as  the  union  is 
incomplete,  the  derived  life  is  imperfect.  And  no 
man  can  be  one  with  neighbour,  child,  dearest,  except 


INDIVIDUAL    DEVEI.OP.MEXT.  75 

as  he  is  one  with  his  origin  ;  and  he  fai]R  of  liis  perfec- 
tion so  long  as  there  is  one  being  in  the  universe  he 
could  not  love. 

Of  all  men  he  is  bound  to  hold  his  face  like  a  flint 
in  witness  of  this  truth  who  owes  everything  that  ^ 
makes  for  eternal  good,  to  the  belief  that  at  the  heart 
of  things  and  causing  them  to  be,  at  tlie  centre  of 
monad,  of  world,  of  protoplastic  mass,  of  loving  dog, 
and  of  man  most  cruel,  is  an  absolute,  perfect  love ; 
and  that  in  the  man  Christ  Jesus  this  love  is  with 
us  men  to  take  us  home.  To  nothing  else  do  I  for  one 
owe  any  grasp  upon  life.  In  this  I  see  the  setting 
right  of  all  things.  To  the  man  who  believes  in  the 
Son  of  God,  poetry  returns  in  a  mighty  wave  ;  liistory 
imrolls  itself  in  harmony  ;  science  shows  crowned  with 
its  own  aureole  of  holiness.  There  is  no  enlivener  of 
the  imagination,  no  enabler  of  the  judf,'ment,  no 
strengthener  of  the  intellect,  to  compare  with  the  belief 
in  a  live  Ideal,  at  the  heart  of  all  personality,  as  of 
every  law.  If  there  be  no  such  live  Ideal,  then  a 
falsehood  can  do  more  for  the  race  than  the  facts  of  its 
being;  then  an  unreality  is  needful  for  the  develop- 
ment of  the  man  in  aU  that  is  real,  in  all  that  is  in  the 
highest  sense  true ;  then  falsehood  is  greater  than  fact, 
and  an  idol  necessary  for  lack  of  a  God.  They  who 
deny  cannot,  in  the  nature  of  things,  know  what  they 
deny.  When  one  sees  a  chaos  begin  to  put  on  the 
shape  of  an  ordered  world,  he  will  hardly  be  persuaded 
it  is  b|r  the  power  of  a  foolish  notion  bred  in  a  diseased 
fancy. 

Let  the  man  then  who  would  rise  to  the  height  of 


76  INDIVIDUAL    DEVKLOl'xMENT. 

his  being,  be  persuaded  to  test  the  Truth  by  the  deed 
— the  highest  and  only  test  that  can  be  applied  to  the 
loftiest  of  all  assertions.  To  every  man  I  say,  "  Do 
the  truth  you  know,  and  you  shall  learn  the  truth  you 
need  to  know,'' 


ST.  GEORGE'S  DAY,  1564. 

LL  England  knows  that  this  year  (1864)  is 
the  three  hundredth  since  Shakspere  was 
born.  The  strong  probability  is  likewise 
that  this  month  of  April  is  that  in  which 
he  first  saw  the  earthly  light.  On  the  twenty-sixth  of 
April  he  was  baptized.  Whether  he  was  born  on  the 
twenty-third,  to  which  effect  there  may  once  have  been 
a  tradition,  we  do  not  know ;  but  though  there  is 
nothing  to  corroborate  that  statement,  there  are  two 
facts  which  would  incline  us  to  believe  it  if  we  could  : 
the  one  that  he  died  on  the  twenty- third  of  April,  thus, 
as  it  were,  completing  a  cycle ;  and  the  other  that  the 
twen  y-third  of  April  is  St.  George's  Day.  If  there  is 
no  harm  in  indulging  in  a  little  fanciful  sentiment 
about  such  a  grand  fact,  we  should  say  that  certainly 
it  was  St.  George  for  merry  England  when  Shakspere 
was  born.  But  had  St.  George  been  the  best  saint  in 
the  calendar — which  we  have  little  enough  ground  for 
supposing  he  was — it  would  better  suit  our  subject  to 
say  that  the  Highest  was  thinking  of  his  England 
when  he  sent  Shakspere  into  it,  to  be  a  strength,  a 
wonder,  and  a  gladness  to  the  nations  of  his  earth. 

>  1864 


78  SHAKSPEEE. 

But  if  we  write  thus  about  Shakspere,  influenced 
only  by  the  fashion  of  the  day,  we  shall  be  much  in 
the  condition  of  those  fashionahle  architects  who  with 
their  vain  praises  built  the  tombs  of  the  prophets, 
while  they  had  no  regard  to  the  lessons  they  taught. 
We  hope  to  be  able  to  show  that  we  have  good  grounds 
for  our  rejoicing  in  the  birth  of  that  child  whom  after- 
years  placed  highest  on  the  rocky  steep  of  Art,  up 
which  so  many  of  those  who  combine  feeling  and 
thought  are  always  striving. 

First,  however,  let  us  look  at  some  of  the  more 
powerful  of  the  influences  into  the  midst  of  which  he 
was  born.  For  a  child  is  born  into  the  womb  of  the 
time,  which  indeed  enclosed  and  fed  him  before  he 
was  born.  Not  the  least  subtle  and  potei-^  of  those 
influences  which  tend  to  the  education  of  the  child  (in 
the  true  sense  of  the  word  education)  are  those  which 
are  brought  to  bear  upon  him  through  the  mind,  heart, 
judgement  of  his  parents.  We  mean  that  those  powers 
which  have  operated  strongly  upon  them,  have  a 
certain  concentrated  operation,  both  antenatal  and 
psychological,  as  well  as  educational  and  spiritual,  upon 
the  child.  Now  Shakspere  was  born  in  the  sixth 
year  of  Queen  Elizabeth.  He  was  the  eldest  son,  but 
the  third  child.  His  father  and  mother  must  have 
been  martied  not  later  than  the  year  1557,  two  years 
after  Cranmer  was  burned  at  the  stake,  one  of  the  two 
hundred  who  thus  perished  in  that  time  of  pain,  re- 
sulting in  the  firm  establishment  of  a  reformation 
which,  like  all  oth'^r  changes  for  the  better,  could  not 
be  yerifled  and  secured  without  some  fonu  or  other  of 


SHAKSPERE.  79 

the  trial  hij  fire.  Events  such  as  then  took  place  in 
every  part  of  the  country  could  not  fail  to  make  a 
strong  impression  upon  all  thinking  people,  especially 
as'  it  was  not  those  of  high  position  only  who  were 
thus  called  upon  to  bear  witness  to  their  beliefs.  John 
Shakspero  and  Mary  Arden  were  in  all  likelihood 
themselves  of  the  Protestant  party  ;  and  nlthough,  as 
far  as  we  know,  they  were  never  in  any  especial  danger 
of  being  denounced,  the  whole  of  the  circumstances 
must  have  tended  to  produce  in  them  individually, 
what  seems  to  have  been  characteristic  of  the  age  in 
which  they  lived,  earnestness.  Tn  times  such  as  those, 
people  are  compelled  to  think. 

And  here  an  interesting  question  occurs  :  Was  it  in 
part  to  his  mother  that  Shakspere  Avas  indebted  for 
that  profound  knowledge  of  the  Bible  which  is  so 
evident  in  his  writings  ?  A  good  many  copies  of  the 
Scriptures  must  have  been  by  this  time,  in  one  trans- 
lation or  another,  scattered  over  the  country.*  No 
doubt  the  word  was  precious  in  those  days,  and  hard 
to  buy ;  but  there  might  have  been  a  copy,  not- 
withstanding, in  the  house  of  John  Shakspere,  and 
it  is  possible  that  it  was  from  his  mother's  lips  that 
the  boy  first  heard  the  Scripture  tales.  We  have 
called  his  acquaintance  with  Scripture  profound^  and 
one  peculiar  way  in  which  it  manifests  itself  will  bear 
out  the  assertion ;  for  frequently  it  is  the  very  spirit 
and  essential  aroma  of  the  passage  that  he  reproduces, 

*  And  it  seems  to  us  probable  that  this  diflFdsion  of  the 
Bible,  did  more  to  rouse  the  slumbering  literary  power  of 
England,  than  any  influences  of  foreign  literature  whatevw. 


80  SIIAKSPERE. 

without  making  any  use  of  the  words  themselves. 
There  are  passages  in  his  writings  which  we  could  not 
have  understood  but  for  some  acquaintance  with  the 
New  Testament.  We  will  produce  a  few  specimens  of 
the  kind  we  mean,  confining  ourselves  to  one  play, 
«  Macbeth." 

Just  mentioning  the  phrase,  "  temple -haunting  mart- 
let "  (act  i.  scene  6),  as  including  in  it  a  reference  to 
the  verse,  "  Yea,  the  sparrow  hath  found  an  house,  and 
the  swallow  a  nest  for  herself,  where  she  may  lay  her 
young,  even  thine  altars,  0  Lord  of  hosts,"  we  pass  to 
the  following  passage,  for  which  we  do  not  believe 
there  is  any  explanation  but  that  suggested  to  us  by 
the  passage  of  Scripture  to  be  cited. 

Macbeth,  on  his  way  to  murder  Duncan,  says, — 

**Thou  sure  and  firm -set  earth, 
Hear  not  my  steps,  which  way  they  walk,  for  fear 
Thy  very  stones  prate  of  my  whereabout. 
And  take  the  present  horror  from  the  time 
Which  now  suits  with  it." 

What  is  meant  by  the  last  two  lines  1  It  seems  to  us 
to  be  just  another  form  of  the  words,  "For  there  is 
nothing  covered,  that  shall  not  be  revealed ;  neither  hid, 
that  shall  not  be  known.  Therefore  whatsoever  ye  have 
spoken  in  darkness  shall  be  heard  in  the  light ;  and 
that  which  ye  havo  spoken  in  the  ear  in  closets  shall 
be  proclaimed  upon  the  house-tops."  Of  course  we  do 
not  mean  that  Macbeth  is  represented  as  having  this 
passage  in  his  mind,  but  that  Shakspere  had  the 
feeling  of  it  when  he  wrote  thus.  What  Macbeth 
ii^  "  Earth,  do  not  hear  me  in  the  dark,  which 


811  \K<ri:R7^.  81 

is  8mta"ble  to  the  present  horror,  lest  the  very  stones 
prate  about  it  in  the  daylight,  which  is  not  suitable  to 
such  things ;  thus  taking  *  the  present  horror  from  the 
time  which  now  suits  with  it.' " 

Again,  in  the  only  piece  of  humour  in  the  play — if 
that  should  be  called  humour  which,  taken  in  its  relation 
to  the  consciousness  of  the  principal  characters,  is  as 
terrible  as  anything  in  the  piece — the  porter  ends  off 
his  fantastic  soliloquy,  in  which  he  personates  the 
porter  of  hell-gate,  with  the  words,  "  But  this  place  is 
too  cold  for  hell :  I'll  devil-porter  it  no  further.  I  had 
thought  to  have  let  in  some  of  all  professions,  that  go 
the  primrose  way  to  the  everlasting  bonfire."  Now 
what  else  had  the  writer  in  his  mind  but  the  verse 
from  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  "  For  wide  is  the  gate, 
and  broad  is  the  way,  that  leadeth  to  destruction,  and 
many  there  be  which  go  in  thereat  "  ? 

It  may  be  objected  that  such  passages  as  these, 
being  of  the  most  commonly  quoted,  imply  no  profound 
acquaintance  with  Scripture,  such  as  we  have  said 
Shakspere  possessed.  But  no  amount  of  knowledge 
of  the  loords  of  the  Bible  would  be  sufficient  to  justify 
the  use  of  the  word  ^ro/oww^.  What  is  remarkable  in 
the  employment  of  these  passages,  is  not  merely  that 
they  are  so  present  to  his  mind  that  they  come  up  for 
use  in  the  most  exciting  moments  of  composition,  but 
that  he  embodies  the  spirit  of  them  in  such  a  new  form 
as  reveals  to  minds  saturated  and  deadened  with  the 
sound  of  the  words,  the  very  visual  image  and  spiritual 
meaning  involved  in  them.  "  The  primrose  way  / " 
And  to  what  1 


82  SHAKSPEEE. 

• 

We  will  confine  ourselves  to  one  passage  more : — 

"  Macbeth 
Is  ripe  for  shaking,  and  the  powers  above 
Put  on  their  instruments.** 

In  the  end  of  the  14th  chapter  of  the  Eevelation  we 
have  the  words,  "  Thrust  in  thy  sickle,  and  reap  :  for 
tlie  time  is  come  for  thee  to  reap  ;  for  the  harvest  of 
the  earth  is  ripe."  We  suspect  that  Shakspere  wrote, 
ripe  to  shaking. 

The  instances  to  which  we  have  confined  ourselves 
do  not  by  any  means  belong  to  tie  most  evident  kind 
of  proof  that  might  be  adduced  of  Shakspere's  ac- 
quaintance with  Scripture.  The  subject,  in  its  ordinary 
aspect,  has  been  elsewhere  treated  with  far  more  fulness 
than  our  design  would  permit  us  to  indulge  in,  even  if 
it  had  not  been  done  already.  Our  object  has  been  to 
bring  forward  a  few  passages  which  seem  to  us  to  breathe 
the  very  spirit  of  individual  passages  in  sacred  writ, 
without  direct  use  of  the  words  themselves ;  and,  of 
course,  in  such  a  case  we  can  only  appeal  to  the  (no 
doubt)  very  various  degrees  of  conviction  which  they 
may  rouse  in  the  minds  of  our  readers. 

But  there  is  one  singular  correspondence  in  another 
almost  literal  quotation  from  the  Gospel,  which  is  to 
us  wonderfully  interesting.  We  are  told  that  the  words 
*'  eye  of  a  needle,"  in  the  passage  about  a  rich  man 
entering  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  mean  the  small  side 
entrance  in  a  city  gate.  Now,  in  "  Richard  IL,"  act  v. 
scene  6,  Richard  quotes  the  passage  thus  :— 

'<  It  is  as  hard  to  oome  as  for  a  oamel 
To  thread  the  postern  of  a  needle's  ejBff* 


SHAKSPEKE.  83 

ehowing  that  either  the  imagination  of  Shakspere 
suggested  the  real  explanation,  or  he  had  taken  pains 
to  acquaint  himself  with  the  significance  of  the  simile. 
"We  can  hardly  say  that  the  correspondence  might  be 
merely  fortuitous ;  because,  at  the  least,  Shakspere 
looked  for  and  found  a  suitable  figure  to  associate  with 
the  words  eye  of  a  needle,  and  so  fell  upon  the  real 
explanation ;  except,  indeed,  he  had  no  particular  sig- 
nificance in  using  the  word  that  meant  a  little  gate, 
instead  of  a  word  meaning  any  kind  of  entrance,  which, 
with  him,  seems  unlikely. 

We  have  not  by  any  means  proven  that  Shak- 
spere's  acquaintance  with  the  Scriptures  liad  an  early 
date  in  his  history ;  but  certainly  the  Bible  inust  have 
had  a  great  influence  upon  liim  who  was  the  higliest 
representative  mind  of  the  time,  its  influence  on  tlie 
general  development  of  the  nation  being  unquestion;i])l(\ 
This,  therefore,  seeing  the  Bible  itself  was  just  dawning 
full  upon  the  country  while  Shakspere  was  becoming 
capable  of  understanding  it,  seems  the  suitable  sequence 
in  which  to  take  notice  of  that  influence,  and  of  some 
of  those  passages  in  his  works  which  testify  to  it. 

But,  besides  the  Bible,  every  nation  has  a  Bible,  or 
at  least  an  Old  Testament,  in  its  own  history  ;  and 
that  Shakspere  paid  especial  attention  to  this,  is  no 
matter  of  conjecture.  We  suspect  his  mode  of  writing 
historical  plays  is  more  after  the  fashion  of  the  Bible 
histories  than  that  of  most  writers  of  history.  Indeed, 
the  development  and  consequences  of  character  and 
conduct  are  clear  to  those  that  read  his  histories  with 
open  eyes.  Now,  in  his  childhood  Shakspere  may 
o  2 


84  SHAKSPEBB. 

have  had  some  special  incentive  to  the  study  of  history 

springing  out  of  the  fact  that  his  mother's  grandfather 
had  been  *'  groom  of  the  chamber  to  Henry  VII.,"  while 
there  is  sufficient  testimony  that  a  further  removed 
ancestor  of  his  father,  as  well,  had  stood  high  in  the 
favour  of  the  same  monarch.  Therefore  the  history  of 
the  troublous  times  of  the  preceding  century,  which 
were  brought  to  a  close  by  the  usurpation  of  Henry  VII., 
would  naturally  be  a  subject  of  talk  in  the  quiet 
household,  where  books  and  amusements  such  as  now 
occupy  our  boys,  were  scarce  or  wanting  altogether. 
The  proximity  of  such  a  past  of  strife  and  commotion, 
crowded  with  eventful  change,  must  have  formed  a 
background  full  of  the  material  of  excitement  to  an 
age  which  lived  in  the  midst  of  a  peculiarly  exciting 
history  of  its  own. 

Perhaps  the  chief  intellectual  characteristic  of  the 
age  of  Elizabeth  was  activity  ;  this  activity  accounting 
even  for  much  that  is  objectionable  in  its  literature. 
IS^ow  this  activity  must  have  been  growing  in  the 
people  throughout  the  fifteenth  century  ;  the  wars  of 
>;ie  Roses,  although  they  stifled  literature,  so  that  it 
had,  as  it  were,  to  be  born  again  in  the  beginning  of 
the  following  century,  being,  after  aU,  but  as  the 
"  eager  strife  "  of  the  shadow-leaves  above  the  "  genuine 
life  "  of  the  grass, — 

"  And  the  mute  repose 
Of  sweetly  breathing  flowers." 

But  when  peace  had  fallen  on  the  land,  it  would  seem 
as  if  the  impulse  to  action  springing  &om  strife  still 


SHAKSPERE. 


85 


operated,  as  tlie  waves  will  Jo  on  raving  upon  the 
shore  after  the  wind  has  ceased,  and  found  one  outlet, 
amongst  others,  in  literature,  and  peculiarly  in  dramatic 
literature.  Peace,  rendered  yet  more  intense  by  the 
cessation  of  the  cries  of  the  tormentors,  and  the  groans 
of  the  noble  army  of  suffering  martyrs,  made,  as  it  were^i 
a  kind  of  vacuum  ;  and  into  that  vacuum  burst  up  the 
torrent-springs  of  a  thousand  souls  —the  thoughts  that 
were  no  longer  repressed — in  the  history  of  the  past 
and  the  Utopian  speculation  on  the  future ;  in  noble 
theology,  capable  statesmanship,  and  science  at  once 
brilliant  and  profound ;  in  the  voyage  of  discovery,  and 
the  change  of  the  swan-like  merchantman  into  a  very 
fire- drake  of  war  for  the  defence  of  the  threatened 
shores ;  in  the  first  brave  speech  of  the  Puritan  in 
Elizabeth's  Parliament,  the  first  murmurs  of  the  voice 
of  liberty,  soon  to  thunder  throughout  the  land  j  in  the 
naturalizing  of  foreign  genius  by  translation,  and  the  in- 
vention, or  at  least  adoptioi^,  of  a  new  and  transcendent 
rhythm ;  in  the  song,  in  the  epic,  in  the  drama. 

So  much  for  the  general.  Let  us  now,  following 
the  course  of  his  life,  recall,  in  a  few  sentences,  some 
of  the  chief  events  which  must  have  impressed  the  all- 
open  mind  of  Shakspere  in  the  earlier  portion  of  his 
history. 

Perhaps  it  would  not  be  going  back  too  far  to  begin 
with  the  Massacre  of  Paris,  which  took  place  when  he 
was  eight  years  old.  It  caused  so  much  horror  in 
England,  that  it  is  not  absurd  to  suppose  that  some 
black  rays  from  the  deed  of  darkness  may  have  fallen 
on  the  mind  of  such  a  child  as  Shakspere. 


86  SIIAKSPERE. 

In  strong  contrast  with  the  foregoing  is  the  next 
event  to  which  we  shall  refer. 

When  he  was  eleven  years  old,  Leicester  gave  the 
Queen  that  magnificent  reception  at  Kenilworth  which 
is  so  well  known  from  its  memorials  in  our  literature. 
It  has  been  suggested  as  probable,  with  quite  enough 
of  likelihood  to  justify  a  conjecture,  that  Shakspere 
may  have  been  present  at  the  dramatic  representations 
then  so  gorgeously  accumulated  before  her  Majesty. 
If  such  was  the  fact,  it  is  easy  to  imagine  what  an 
influence  the  shows  must  have  had  on  the  mind  of  the 
young  dramatic  genius,  at  a  time  when,  happily,  the 
critical  faculty  is  not  by  any  means  so  fully  awake  as 
are  the  receptive  and  exultant  faculties,  and  when  what 
the  nature  chiefly  needs  is  excitement  to  growth,  with- 
out which  all  pruning,  the  most  artistic,  is  useless,  as 
having  nothing  to  operate  upon. 

When  he  was  fifteen  years  old,  Sir  Thomas  North's 
translation  of  Plutarch  (through  the  French)  was  first 
published.  Any  reader  who  has  compared  one  of 
Shakspere's  Roman  pla^^s  with  the  corresponding  life 
in  Plutarch,  will  not  be  surprised  'that  we  should 
mention  this  as  one  of  those  events  which  must  have 
been  of  paramount  influence  upon  Shakspere.  It  is 
not  likely  that  he  became  acquainted  with  the  large 
folio  with  its  medallion  portraits  first  placed  singly, 
and  then  repeated  side  by  side  for  comparison,  as  soon 
as  it  made  its  appearance  ,  but  as  we  cannot  tell  when 
he  began  to  read  it,  it  seems  as  well  to  place  it  in  the 
order  its  publication  would  assign  to  it.  Besides,  it 
evidently  took  such  a  hold  of  the  man,  that  it  is  m38t 


SHAKSPEKi:.  87 

probable  his  acquaintance  with  it  began  at  a  very  early 
period  of  his  history.  Indeed,  it  seems  to  us  to  have 
been  one  of  the  most  powerful  aids  to  the  development 
of  that  perception  and  discrimination  of  character  with 
which  he  was  gifted  to  such  a  remarkable  degree.  Nor 
would  it  be  any  derogation  from  the  originality  of  his 
genius  to  say,  that  in  a  very  pregnant  sense  he  must 
have  been  a  disciple  of  Plutarch.  In  those  plays 
founded  on  Plutarch's  stories  he  picked  out  every 
dramatic  point,  and  occasionally  employed  the  very 
phrases  of  North's  nervous,  graphic,  and  characteristic 
English.  He  seems  to  have  felt  that  it  was  an  honour 
to  his  work  to  embody  in  it  the  words  of  Plutarch 
himself,  as  he  knew  them  first.  From  him  he  seems 
especially  to  have  learned  how  to  bring  out  the  points 
of  a  character,  by  putting  one  man  over  against  another, 
and  remarking  wherein  they  resembled  each  other  and 
wherein  they  differed;  after  which  fashion,  in  other 
plays  as  well  as  those,  he  partly  arranged  his  dramatic 
characters. 

Not  long  after  he  went  to  London,  when  he  was 
twenty-two,  the  death  of  Sir  Philip  Sidney  at  the  age 
of  thirty-two,  must  have  had  its  unavoidable  influence 
on  him,  seeing  all  Europe  was  in  mourning  for  the 
death  of  its  model,  almost  ideal  man.  In  England  the 
general  mourning,  both  in  the  court  and  the  city,  which 
lasted  for  months,  is  supposed  by  Dr.  Zouch  to  have 
been  the  first  instance  of  the  kind ;  that  is,  for  the 
:leath  of  a  private  person.  Eenowned  over  the  civilized 
world  for  everything  for  which  a  man  could  be 
renowned,  his  literary  fame  must  have  had  a  consider- 


88 


SHAKSPERE. 


able  share  in  the  impression  his  death  would  make  on 
such  a  man  as  Shakspere.  For  although  none  of  his 
works  were  published  till  after  his  death,  the  first 
within  a  few  months  of  that  event,  his  fame  as  a  writer 
was  widely  spread  in  private,  and  report  of  the  same 
could  hardly  fail  to  reach  one  who,  although  he  had 
probably  no  friends  of  rank  as  yet,  kept  such  keen 
open  ears  for  all  that  was  going  on  around  him.  But 
whether  or  not  he  had  heard  of  the  literary  greatness 
of  Sir  Philip  before  his  death,  the  ''  Arcadia,"  which 
was  first  published  four  years  after  his  death  (1590), 
and  which  in  eight  years  had  reached  the  third  edition 
— with  another  still  in  Scotland  the  following  year — 
must  have  been  full  of  interest  to  Shakspere.  This 
book  is  very  different  indeed  from  the  ordinary  impres- 
sion of  it.  which  most  minds  have  received  through  the 
confident  incapacity  of  the  critics  of  last  century.  Few 
books  have  been  published  more  fruitful  in  the  results 
and  causes  of  thought,  more  sparkling  with  fancy, 
more  evidently  the  outcome  of  rich  and  noble  habit, 
than  this  "  Arcadia "  of  Philip  Sidney.  That  Shak- 
spere read  it,  is  sufficiently  evident  from  the  fact  that 
from  it  he  has  taken  the  secondary  but  still  important 
plots  in  two  of  his  plays. 

Although  we  are  anticipating,  it  is  better  to  mention 
hexe  another  book,  published  in  the  same  year,  namely, 
1590,  when  Shakspere  was  six-and-twenty :  the  first 
three  books  of  Spenser's  "  Faery  Queen."  Of  its  recep- 
tion and  character  it  is  needless  here  to  say  anything 
further  than,  of  the  latter,  that  nowadays  the  depths  of 
its  teaching,  heartily  prized  as  that  was  by  no  less  a 


SHAKSFi:iiE.  89 

man  than  Milton,  are  seldom  explored.  But  it  would 
be  a  labour  of  months  to  set  out  the  known  and 
imagined  sources  of  the  knowledge  and  spiritual  pabu- 
lum of  the  man  who  laid  every  mental  region  so  under 
contriMition,  that  he  has  been  claimed  by  almost  every 
profession  as  having  been  at  one  time  or  another  a 
student  of  its  peculiar  science,  so  marvellously  in  him 
was  the  power  of  assimilation  combined  with  that  of 
reproduction. 

To  go  back  a  little  :  in  1587,  when  he  was  three- 
and-twenty,  Mary  Queen  of  Scots  was  executed.  In 
the  following  year  came  that  mighty  victory  of  England, 
and  her  allies  the  winds  and  the  waters,  over  the  tower- 
ing pride  of  the  Spanish  Armada  Out  from  the 
coasts,  like  the  birds  from  their  cliffs  to  defend  their 
young,  flew  the  little  navy,  many  of  the  vessels  only 
able  to  carry  a  few  guns ;  and  fighting,  fire-ships,  and 
tempest  left  this  island,— 

"  This  precious  stone  set  in  the  silver  sea," 

still  a  "  blessed  plot,"  with  an  accumulated  obligation 
to  liberty  which  can  only  be  paid  by  helping  others  to 
be  free  ;  and  when  she  utterly  forgets  which,  her  doom 
is  sealed,  as  surely  as  that  of  the  old  empires  which 
passed  away  in  their  self-indulgence  and  wickedness. 

When  Shakspere  was  about  thirty-two,  Sir  Walter 
Raleigh  published  his  glowing  account  of  Guiana, 
which  instantly  provided  the  English  mind  with  an 
earthly  paradise  or  fairy-land.  Raleigh  himself  seems 
to  have  been  too  full  of  his  own  reports  for  us  to  be 
able  to  suppose  that  he  either  invented  or  disbelief  ed 


90 


SHAKSPEKE. 


th^nj  especially  when  he  represents  the  heavenly 
country  to  which,  in  expectation  of  his  execution,  he 
is  looking  forward,  after  the  fashion  of  those  regions  of 
the  wonderful  West : — 

•*  Then  the  blessed  Paths  wee'l  travel, 
Strow'd  with  Rubies  thick  as  gravel ; 
Sealings  of  Diamonds,  Saphire  floors, 
High  walls  of  Coral,  and  Pearly  Bowers." 

Such  were  some  of  the  influences  which  widened  the 
region  of  thought,  and  excited  the  productive  power, 
in  the  minds  of  the  time.  After  this  period  there  were 
fewer  of  such  in  Shakspere's  life  ;  and  if  there  had 
been  more  of  them  they  woidd  liave  been  of  less  im- 
port as  to  their  operation  on  a  mind  more  fully  formed 
and  more  capable  of  choosing  its  own  influences  Let 
us  now  give  a  backward  glance  at  the  history  of  the  art 
which  Shakspere  chose  as  the  means  of  easing  his  own 
mind  of  that  wealth  which,  like  the  gold  and  the  silver, 
has  a  moth  and  rust  of  its  own,  except  it  be  kept  in  use 
by  being  sent  out  for  the  good  of  our  neighbours. 

It  was  a  mighty  gain  for  the  language  and  the  people 
when,  in  the  middle  of  the  fourteenth  century,  by  per- 
mission of  the  Pope,  the  miracle  plays,  most  probably 
hitherto  represented  in  Norman-French,  as  Mr.  Collier 
supposes,  began  to  be  represented  in  English.  Most 
likely  there  had  been  dramatic  representations  of  a  sort 
from  the  very  earliest  period  of  the  nation's  history  ; 
for,  to  begin  with  the  lowest  form,  at  what  time  would 
there  not,  for  the  delight  of  listeuers,  have  been  the 
imitation  of  animal  sounds,  such  as  the  drama  of  the 


SHAKSPEBB.  91 

conversation  between  an  attacking  poodle  and  a  fiercely 
repellent  puss?  Through  innumerable  gradations  of 
childhood  would  the  art  grow  before  it  attained  the  first 
formal  embodiment  in  such  plays  as  those,  so-called,  of 
miracles,  consisting  just  of  Scripture  stories,  both 
canonical  and  apocryphal,  dramatized  after  the  rudest 
fashion.  Eegarded  from  the  height  which  the  art  had 
reached  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  after,  "how 
dwarfed  a  growth  of  cold  and  night "  do  these  miracle- 
plays  show  themselves  !  But  at  a  time  when  there  was 
no  printing,  little  preaching,  and  Latin  })ia}ers,  we 
cannot  help  thinking  that,  grotesque  and  ill-imagined 
as  they  are,  they  must  have  been  of  uuspeakable  value 
for  the  instruction  of  a  people  whose  spiritual  digestion 
was  not  of  a  sort  to  be  injured  by  the  presence  of  a 
quite  abnormal  quantity  of  husk  and  saw-du.st  in  their 
food.  And  occasionally  we  find  verses  of  true  poetic 
feeling,  such  as  the  following,  in  "  The  Fall  of  Man  :" — 

Deus,  Adam,  that  with  myn  handys  I  made. 

Where  art  thou  now  ?     What  hast  thou  wrought  ? 

Adam.  A!  lord,  for  synne  oure  floures  do  ffade, 
I  here  thi  voys,  but  I  se  the  nought ; 

implying  that  the  separation  between  God  and  man, 
although  it  had  destroyed  the  beatific  vision,  was  not 
yet  so  complete  as  to  make  the  creature  deaf  to  the 
voice  of  his  Maker.  Nov  are  tlie  words  of  Eve,  with 
which  she  begs  her  husband,  in  her  shame  and  remorse, 
to  strangle  her,  odd  and  quaint  as  they  are,  without  an 
utmost  overpowering  pathos ; — 

"Now  stomble  we  on  stalk  and  ston| 
My  wy t  awey  is  fro  mo  gon : 


92  SHAKSPERE. 

,      Wrythe  on  to  my  neoke  bon 

With  hardnesse  of  thin  honde," 

To  this  Adam  commences  his  reply  with  the  verses, — 

**  Wyff,  thi  -wytt  is  not  wurthe  a  rosohe. 
Leve  woman,  turn  thi  thought."  * 

And  this  portion  of  the  general  representation  ends 
with  these  verses,  spoken  by  Eve  : — 

"Alas  !  that  ever  we  wrought  this  synne, 
Oure  bodely  sustenauns  for  to  wynne, 
Ye  must  delve  and  I  xal  spynne, 
In  care  to  ledyn  oure  lyff." 

In  connexion  with  these  plays,  one  of  the  contempla- 
tions most  interesting  to  us  is,  the  contrast  between 
them  and  the  places  in  which  they  were  occasionally 
represented.  For  though  the  scaffolds  on  which  they 
were  shown  were  usually  erected  in  market-places  or 
churchyards,  sometimes  they  rose  in  the  great  churches, 
and  the  plays  were  represented  with  the  aid  of  eccle- 
siastics. Here,  then,  we  have  the  rude  beginnings  of 
the  dramatic  art,  in  which  the  devil  is  the  unfortunate 
buffoon,  giving  occasion  to  the  most  exuberant  laughter 
of  the  people — here  is  this  rude  boyhood,  if  we  may  so 
say,  of  the  one  art,  roofed  in  with  the  perfection  of 
another,  of  architecture  ;  a  perfection  which  now  we 
can  only  imitate  at  our  best :  below,  the  clumsy  con 
trivance  and  the  vulgar  jest;  above,  the  solemn  heaven 
of  uplifted  arches,  their  mysterious  glooms  ringing  with 
the  delight  of  the  multitude  :  the  play  of  children 
enclosed  in  the  heart  of  prayer  aspiring  in  stone.     But 


8HAKSPESB.  98 

it  was  not  by  any  means  all  laughter ;  and  so  mucli 
nearer  than  architecture  is  the  drama  to  the  ordinary 
human  heart,  that  we  cannot  help  thinking  these  gro- 
tesque representations  did  far  more  to  arouse  the  inward 
life  and  conscience  of  the  people  than  all  the  glory  into 
which  the  out- working  spirit  of  the  monks  had  com- 
pelled the  stuhhorn  stone  to  bourgeon  and  blossom. 

But  although,  no  doubt,  there  was  some  kind  of  growth 
going  on  in  the  drama  even  during  the  dreary  fifteenth 
century,  we  must  not  suppose,  that  it  was  by  any  regu- 
lar and  steady  progression  that  it  arrived  at  the  gran- 
deur of  the  Elizabethan  perfection.  It  was  rather  as  if 
a  dry,  knotty,  uncouth,  but  vigorous  plant  suddenly 
opened  out  its  inward  life  in  a  flower  of  surpassing 
splendour  and  loveliness.  When  the  representation  of 
real  historical  persons  in  the  miracle-plays  gave  way 
before  the  introduction  of  unreal  allegorical  personages, 
and  the  miracle-play  was  almost  driven  from  the  stage 
by  the  "  play  of  morals  "  as  it  was  called,  there  was 
certainly  no  great  advance  made  in  dramatic  represen- 
tation. The  chief  advantage  gained  was  room  for  more 
variety  ;  while  in  some  important  respects  these  plays 
fell  otf  from  the  merits  of  the  preceding  kind.  Indeed, 
any  attempt  to  teach  morals  allegorically  must  lack  that 
vivifying  fire  of  faith  working  in  the  poorest  represen- 
tations of  a  history  which  the  people  heartily  believed 
and  loved.  Nor  when  we  come  to  examine  the 
favourite  amusement  of  later  royalty,  do  we  find  that 
the  interludes  brought  forward  in  the  pauses  of  the 
banquets  of  Henry  YIII.  have  a  claim  to  any  refine- 
ment upon  those  old  miracle-plays.    They  have  gained 


94  SHAKSPERE. 

in  facility  and  wit ;  they  have  lost  in  poetry.  They 
have  lost  pathos  too,  and  have  gathered  grossness. 
In  the  comedies  which  soon  appear,  there  is  far  more 
of  fun  than  of  art  ;  and  although  the  historical  play 
had  existed  for  some  time,  and  the  streams  of  learning 
from  the  inns  of  court  had  floM^ed  in  to  swell  that  of 
the  drama,  it  is  not  before  the  appearance  of  Shakspere 
that  we  find  any  whole  of  artistic  or  poetic  value.  And 
this  brings  us  to  another  branch  of  the  subject,  of  which 
it  seems  to  us  that  the  importance  has  never  been  duly 
acknowledged.  We  refer  to  the  use,  if  not  invention, 
of  llank  verse  in  England,  and  its  application  to  the 
purposes  of  the  drama.  It  seems  to  us  that  in  any 
contemplation  of  Shakspere  and  his  times,  the  con- 
sideration of  these  points  ought  not  to  be  omitted. 

We  have  in  the  present  day  one  grand  master  of 
blank  verse,  the  Poet  Laureate.  But  where  would  he 
have  been  if  Milton  had  not  gone  before  him  ;  or  if  the 
verse  amidst  which  he  works  like  an  informing  spirit 
had  not  existed  at  all  ?  No  doubt  he  might  have 
invented  it  himself;  but  how  different  would  the 
result  have  been  from  the  verse  which  he  will  now 
leave  behind  him  to  lie  side  by  side  for  comparison 
with  that  of  the  master  of  the  epic  !  All  thanks  then 
to  Henry  Howard,  Earl  of  Surrey !  who,  if,  dying  on 
the  scaffold  at  the  early  age  of  thirty,  he  has  left  no 
poetry  in  itself  of  much  value,  yet  so  wrote  that  ho 
refined  the  poetic  usages  of  the  language,  and,  above 
all,  was  tke  first  who  ever  made  blank  verse  iii  English. 
He  used  it  in  translating  the  second  and  fourth  books 
of  Virgil's  ".<3Eneid."     This  translation  he  probably 


SHAKSPEKB.  05 

wrote  not  long  before  his  execution,  which  took  place 
in  1547,  seventeen  years  before  the  birth  of  Shakspere. 
There  are  passages  of  excellence  in  the  work,  and  very 
rarely  does  a  verse  quite  fail.  But,  as  might  be 
expected,  it  is  somewhat  stiff,  and,  as  it  were,  stunted 
in  sound  ;  partly  from  the  fact  that  the  lines  are  too 
much  divided,  where  distinction  would  have  been  suf- 
ficient. It  would  have  been  strange,  indeed,  if  he  had 
at  once  made  a  free  use  of  a  rhythm  which  every  boy- 
poet  now  thinks  he  can  do  what  he  pleases  with,  but 
of  which  only  a  few  ever  learn  the  real  scope  and  capa- 
bilities. Besides,  the  difficulty  was  increased  by  the 
fact  that  the  nearest  approach  to  it  in  measure  was  the 
heroic  conplet,  so  well  known  in  our  language,  although 
scarce  one  who  has  used  it  has  come  up  to  the  various- 
ness  of  its  modelling  in  the  hands  of  Chaucer,  with 
whose  writings  Surrey  was  of  course  familiar.  But 
various  as  is  its  melody  in  Chaucer,  the  fact  of  there 
being  always  an  anticipation  of  the  perfecting  of  a 
rhyme  at  the  end  of  tbe  couplet  would  make  one  accus- 
tomed to  heroic  verse  ready  to  introduce  a  rhythmical 
fall  and  kind  of  close  at  the  end  of  every  blank  verse 
in  trying  to  write  that  measure  for  the  first  time.  Still, 
as  we  say,  there  is  good  verse  in  Surrey's  translation. 
Take  the  following  lines  for  a  specimen,  in  which  the 
fault  just  mentioned  is  scarcely  perceptible.  Mercury 
is  the  subject  of  them. 

"  His  golden  wings  he  knits,  which  him  transport, 
With  a  light  wind  above  the  earth  and  seas ; 
And  then  with  him  his  wand  he  took,  whereby 
He  calls  from  hell  pale  ghosts. 


96  SHAKSPERE. 

By  power  whereof  he  drives  the  winds  avray, 
And  passeth  eke  amid  the  troubled  clouds, 
Till  in  his  flight  he  'gan  descry  the  top 
And  the  steep  flanks  of  rocky  Atlas*  hill 
That  with  his  crown  sustains  the  welkin  up  ) 
Whose  heal,  forgrown  with  pine,  circled  alway 
With  misty  clouds,  is  beaten  with  wind  and  storm ; 
His  shoulders  spread  with  snow  j  and  from  his  chin 
The  springs  descend  ;  his  beard  frozen  with  ice. 
Here  Mercury  with  equal  shining  wingg 
First  touched." 

In  all  comparative  criticism  justice  demands  that  lie 
who  began  any  mode  should  not  be  compared  with  those 
who  follow  only  on  the  ground  of  absolute  merit  in  the 
productions  themselves ;  for  while  he  may  be  inferior 
in  regard  to  quality,  he  stands  on  a  height,  as  the 
inventor,  to  which  they,  as  imitators,  can  never  ascend, 
although  they  may  climb  other  and  loftier  heights, 
through  the  example  he  has  set  them.  It  is  doubtful, 
however,  whether  Surrey  himself  invented  this  verse, 
or  only  followed  the  lead  of  some  poet  of  Italy  or 
Spain ;  in  both  which  countries  it  is  said  that  blank 
verse  had  been  used  before  Surrey  wrote  English  in  that 
measure. 

Here  then  we  have  the  low  beginnings  of  blank 
verse.  It  was  nearly  a  hundred  and  twenty  years 
before  Milten  took  it  up,  and,  while  it  served  him 
well,  glorified  it ;  nor  are  we  aware  of  any  poem  of 
worth  written  in  that  measure  between.  Here,  of 
course,  we  speak  of  the  epic  form  of  the  verse,  which, 
an  being  uttered  ore  rotundo,  is  necessarily  of  consider- 
able difference  from  the  form  it  assumes  in  the  drama. 

Let  us  now  glance  for  a  moment  at  the  forms  of 


SHAKSPERE.  97 

composition  in  use  for  dramatic  purposes  before  blank 
verse  came  into  favour  with  play-writers.  The  nature 
of  the  verse  employed  in  the  miracle-plays  will  be  suf- 
ficiently seen  from  the  short  specimens  already  given. 
These  plays  were  made  up  of  carefully  measured  and 
varied  lines,  with  correct  and  superabundant  rhymes, 
and  no  marked  lack  of  melody  or  rhythm.  But  as  far 
as  we  have  made  acquaintance  with  the  moral  and 
other  rhymed  plays  which  followed,  there  was  a  great 
falling  off  in  these  respects.  They  are  in  great  measure 
composed  of  long,  irregular  lines,  with  a  kind  of  rhyth- 
mical progress  rather  than  rhythm  in  them.  They  are 
exceedingly  difficult  to  read  musically,  at  least  to  one 
of  our  day.  Here  are  a  few  verses  of  the  sort,  from 
the  dramatic  poem,  rather  than  drama,  called  somewhat 
improperly  "  The  Moral  Play  of  God's  Promises,"  by 
John  Bale,  who  died  the  year  before  Shakspere  was  born. 
It  is  the  first  in  Dodsley's  collection.  The  verses  have 
some  poetic  merit.  The  rhythm  will  be  allowed  to  be 
difficult  at  least.  The  verses  are  arranged  in  stanzas, 
of  which  we  give  two.  In  most  plays  the  verses  are 
arranged  in  rhyming  couplets  only. 

Pater  Ccelestis. 
I  have  with  fearoenesse  mankynde  oft  tymes  corrected. 
And  agayne,  I  have  allured  hym  by  swete  promes. 
I  have  sent  sore  plages,  when  he  hath  me  neglected. 
And  then  by  and  by,  most  comfortable  swetnes. 
To  Wynne  hym  to  grace,  bothe  mercye  and  ryghteousnes 
I  have  exercysed,  yet  wyll  he  not  am^de. 
Shall  I  now  lose  hym,  or  shall  I  him  defende  P 

In  hya  moat  mysohefe,  moat  hygh  grace  will  I  sendee 
To  overcome  hym  by  favonre,  if  it  may  be. 


98  SHAKSPEEE. 

Witli  hys  abnsyons  no  longar  wyll  I  oontende, 
Bnt  now  accomplysh  my  first  wyll  and  deore. 
My  worde  beynge  flesh,  from  hens  shall  set  hym  fre^ 
Hym  teachynge  a  waye  of  perfyght  ryhteousnesse. 
That  he  shall  not  nede  to  perysh  in  hys  weaknesse. 

To  our  ears,  at  least,  the  older  miracle-plays  were  greatly 
superior.  It  is  interesting  to  find,  however,  in  this 
apparently  popular  mode  of  "  building  the  rhyme  " — 
certainly  not  the  lofty  rhyme,  for  no  such  crumbling 
foundation  could  carry  any  height  of  superstructure — 
the  elements  of  the  most  popular  rhythm  of  the  present 
day  ;  a  rhythm  admitting  of  any  number  of  syllables 
in  the  line,  from  four  up  to  twelve,  or  even  more,  and 
demanding  only  that  there  shall  be  not  more  than  four 
accented  syllables  in  the  line.  A  song  written  with 
any  spirit  in  this  measure  has,  other  things  not  being 
quite  equal,  yet  almost  a  certainty  of  becoming  more 
popular  than  one  written  in  any  other  measure.  Most 
of  Barry  Cor  a  wall's  and  Mrs.  Heman's  songs  are 
written  in  it.  Scott's  "  Lay  of  the  Last  Minstrel," 
Coleridge's  "  Christabel,"  Byron's  "  Siege  of  Corinth," 
Shelley's  *'  Sensitive  Plant,"  are  examples  of  the 
rhythm.  Spenser  is  the  first  who  has  made  good  use 
of  it.  One  of  the  months  in  the  "  Shepherd's  Calen- 
dar "  is  composed  in  it.  We  quote  a  few  lines  from 
this  poem,  to  show  at  once  the  kind  we  mean: — 

"No  marvel,  Thenot,  if  thou  can  bear 
Cheerfully  the  winter's  wrathful  cheer; 
For  age  and  winter  accord  fall  nigh  ; 
This  chill,  that  cold ;  this  crooked,  that  wry  | 
And  as  the  lowering  weather  looks  down, 
So  seemest  thou  like  Gk>od  Friday  to  fruwai 


SHAKSPERE.  W 

Bnt  my  flowering  youth  is  foe  to  frost  | 

My  ship  unwont  in  storms  to  be  tost." 

We  can  trace  it  slightly  in  Sir  Thomas  "Wyatt,  and  we 
think  in  others  who  preceded  Spenser.  There  is  no 
sign  of  it  in  Chaucer.  But  we  judge  it  to  be  the 
essential  rhythm  of  Anglo-Saxon  poetry,  which  will 
quite  harmonize  with,  if  it  cannot  explain,  the  fact  of 
its  being  the  most  popular  measure  still.  Shakspere 
makes  a  little  use  of  it  in  one,  if  not  in  more,  of  his 
plays,  though  it  there  partakes  of  the  irregular 
character  of  that  of  the  older  plays  which  he  is  imitating. 
But  we  suspect  the  clowns  of  the  authorship  of  some 
of  the  rhymes,  "  speaking  more  than  was  set  down  for 
them,"  evidently  no  uncommon  offence. 

Prose  was  likewise  in  use  for  the  drama  at  an  early 
period. 

But  we  must  now  regard  the  application  of  blank 
verse  to  the  use  of  the  drama.  And  in  this  part  of 
our  subject  we  owe  most  to  the  investigations  of  ^Ir. 
Collier,  than  whom  no  one  has  done  more  to  merit  our 
gratitude  for  such  aids.  It  is  universally  acknowledged 
that  "  Ferrex  and  Porrex  "  was  the  first  drama  in  blank 
verse.  But  it  was  never  represented  on  the  public 
stage.  It  was  the  joint  production  of  Thomas  Sack- 
ville,  afterwards  Lord  Buckhurst  and  Earl  of  Dorset, 
and  Thomas  Norton,  both  gentlemen  of  the  Inner 
Temple,  by  the  members  of  which  it  was  played  before 
the  Queen  at  Whitehall  in  1561,  throe  years  before 
Shakspere  was  born.  As  to  its  merits,  the  impression 
left  by  it  upon  our  minds  is  such  that,  although  the 
verse  is  decent,  and  in  some  respects  irreproachable,  we 
H  2       * 


100  SHAKSPEEE. 

think  the  time  spent  in  reading  it  must  be  all  but  lost 
to  any  but  those  who  must  verify  to  themselves  their 
literary  profession ;  a  profession  which,  like  all  other 
professions,  involves  a  good  deal  of  disagreeable  duty. 
We  spare  our  readers  all  quotation,  there  being  no 
occasion  to  show  what  blank  verse  of  the  commonest 
description  is.  But  we  beg  to  be  allowed  to  state  that 
this  drama  by  no  means  represents  the  poetic  powers  of 
Thomas  Sackville.  For  although  we  cannot  agree 
with  Hallam's  general  criticism,  either  for  or  against 
Sackville,  and  although  we  admire  Spenser,  we  hope, 
as  much  as  that  writer  could  have  admired  him,  we 
yet  venture  to  say  that  not  only  may  some  of  Sackville's 
personifications  "  fairly  be  compared  with  some  of  the 
most  poetical  passages  in  Spenser,"  but  that  there  is  in 
this  kind  in  Sackville  a  strength  and  simplicity  of  repre- 
sentation which  surpasses  that  of  Spenser  in  passages  in 
which  the  latter  probably  imitated  the  former.  We 
refer  to  the  allegorical  personages  in  Sackville's  "In- 
duction to  the  Mirrour  of  Magistrates,"  and  in  Spenser's 
description  of  the  "  House  of  Pride." 

Mr.  Collier  judges  that  the  play  in  blank  verse  first 
represented  on  the  public  stage  was  the  "  Tamburlaine  " 
of  Christopher  Marlowe,  and  that  it  was  acted  before 
1587,  at  which  date  Shakspere  would  be  twenty-three. 
This  was  followed  by  other  and  better  plays  by  the 
same  author.  Although  we  cannot  say  much  for  the 
dramatic  art  of  Marlowe,  he  has  far  surpassed  every 
one  that  went  before  him  in  dramatic  poetry.  The 
passages  that  might  worthily  be  quoted  from  Marlowe's 
writings  for  the  sake  of  their  poetry  are  innumerable, 


SHAKSPERE.  -  101 

notwithstanding  that  there  are  many  others  which 
occupy  a  border  land  between  poetry  and  bombast,  and 
are  such  that  it  is  to  us  impossible  to  say  to  which  class 
they  rather  belong.  Of  course  it  is  easy  for  a  critic  to 
gain  the  credit  of  common-sense  at  the  same  time  that 
he  saves  himself  the  trouble  of  doing  what  he  too  fre- 
quently shows  himself  incapable  of  doing  to  any  good 
purpose — we  mean  thinking — by  classing  all  such  pas- 
sages together  as  bombastical  nonsense ;  but  even  in 
the  matter  of  poetry  and  bombast,  a  wise  reader  will 
recognize  that  extremes  so  entirely  meet,  without  being 
in  the  least  identical,  that  they  are  capable  of  a  sort 
of  chemico-literary  admixture,  if  not  of  combination. 
Goethe  himself  need  not  have  been  ashamed  to  have 
written  one  or  two  of  the  scenes  in  Marlowe's  "  Faust  ;'* 
not  that  we  mean  to  imply  that  they  in  the  least 
resemble  Goethe's  handiwork.  His  verse  is,  for  dramatic 
purposes,  far  inferior  to  Shakspere's ;  but  it  was  a 
great  matter  for  Shakspere  that  Marlowe  preceded  him, 
and  helped  to  prepare  to  his  hand  the  tools  and  fashions 
he  needed.  The  provision  of  blank  verse  for  Shak- 
spere's use  seems  to  us  worthy  of  being  called  providen- 
tial, even  in  a  system  in  which  we  cannot  believe  that 
there  is  any  chance.  For  as  the  stage  itself  is  elevated 
a  few  feet  above  the  ordinary  level,  because  it  is  the 
scene  of  a  representation,  just  so  the  speech  of  the 
drama,  dealing  not  with  unreal  but  with  ideal  persons, 
the  fool  being  a  worthy  fool,  and  the  villain  a  worthy 
villain,  needs  to  be  elevated  some  tones  above  that  of 
ordinary  life,  Avhich  is  generally  flavoured  with  so  much 
of  the  commonplace,     i^'ow  the  commonplace  has  i^ 


102  SHAKSPERE. 

place  at  all  in  the  drama  of  Shakspere,  which  fact  at 
once  elevates  it  above  the  tone  of  ordinary  life.  And  so 
the  mode  of  the  speech  must  be  elevated  as  well ;  there- 
fore from  prose  into  blank  verse.  If  we  go  beyond 
this,  we  cease  to  be  natural  for  the  stage  as  well  as 
life ;  and  the  result  is  that  kind  of  composition  well 
enough  known  in  Shakspere's  time,  which  he  ridicules 
in  the  recitations  of  the  player  in  "  Hamlet,"  about 
Priam  and  Hecuba.  "We  could  show  the  very  passages 
of  the  play- writer  Nash  which  Shakspere  imitates  in 
these.  To  use  another  figure,  Shakspere,  in  the  same 
play,  instructs  the  players  "to  hold,  as  'twere,  the 
mirror  up  to  nature."  Now  every  one  must  have  felt 
that  somehow  there  is  a  difference  between  the  appear- 
ance of  any  object  or  group  of  objects  immediately 
presented  to  the  eye,  and  the  appearance  of  the  same 
object  or  objects  in  a  mirror.  Nature  herself  is  not 
the  same  in  the  mirror  held  up  to  her.  Everything 
changes  sides  in  this  representation ;  and  the  room 
which  is  an  ordinary,  well-known,  homely  room,  gains 
something  of  the  strange  and  poetic  when  regarded  in 
the  mirror  over  the  fire.  Now  for  this  representation, 
for  this  mirror-reflection  on  the  stage,  blank  verse  is 
just  the  suitable  glass  to  receive  the  silvering  of  the 
g('nius-mind  be^^ind  it. 

l>ut  if  Shakspere  had  had  to  sit  down  and  make  his 
tools  first,  and  then  quarry  his  stone  and  fell  his  timber 
for  the  building  of  his  house,  instead  of  finding  every- 
thing ready  to  his  hand  for  dressing  his  stone  already 
hewn,  for  sawing  and  carving  the  timber  ah-eady  in 
logs  and  planks  beside  him,  no  doubt  his  house  would 


8HAKSPEEE.  103 

have  been  built ;  but  can  we  with  any  reason  suppose 
that  it  would  have  proved  such  "a  lordly  pleasure- 
house"?  Not  even  Shakspere  could  do  without  his 
poor  little  brothers  who  preceded  him,  and,  like  the 
goblins  and  gnomes  of  the  drama,  got  everything  out 
of  the  bowels  of  the  dark  earth,  ready  for  the  master, 
whom  it  would  have  been  a  shame  to  see  working  in 
the  gloom  and  the  dust  instead  of  in  the  open  eye  of  the 
day.  Nor  is  anything  so  helpful  to  the  true  develop- 
ment of  power  as  the  possibility  of  free  action  for  as 
much  of  the  power  as  is  already  operative.  This  room 
for  free  action  was  provided  by  blank  verse. 

Yet  when  Shakspere  came  first  upon  the  scene  of 
dramatic  labour,  he  had  to  serve  his  private  apprentice- 
ship, to  which  the  apprenticeship  of  the  age  in  the 
drama,  had  led  up.  He  had  to  act  first  of  all.  Driven 
to  London  and  the  drama  by  an  irresistible  impulse, 
when  the  choice  of  some  profession  was  necessary  to 
make  him  independent  of  his  father,  seeing  he  was  him- 
self, though  very  young,  a  married  man,  the  first  form 
in  which  the  impulse  to  the  drama  would  naturally  show 
itself  in  him  would  be  the  desire  to  act ;  for  the  outside 
relations  would  first  operate.  As  to  the  degree  of  merit 
he  possessed  as  an  actor  we  have  but  scanty  means  of 
judging;  for  afterwards,  in  his  own  plays,  he  never 
took  the  best  characters,  having  written  them  for  his 
fiiend  Richard  Burbage.  Possibly  the  dramatic  im- 
pulse was  sufficiently  appeased  by  the  writing  of  the 
play,  and  he  desired  no  further  satisfaction  from  per- 
sonal representation  ;  although  the  amount  of  study 
spent  upon  the  higher  department  of  the  art  might 


104  SHAKSPEBE. 

have  been  more  than  sufficient  to  render  him  unrivalled 
as  well  in  the  presentation  of  his  own  conceptions. 
But  the  dramatic  spring,  having  once  broken  the  upper 
surface,  would  scoop  out  a  deeper  and  deeper  weU  for 
itself  to  play  in,  and  the  actor  would  soon  begin  to 
work  upon  the  parts  he  had  himself  to  study  for  pre- 
sentation. It  being  found  that  he  greatly  bettered 
his  own  parts,  those  of  others  would  be  submitted  to 
him,  and  at  length  whole  plays  committed  to  his 
revision,  of  which  kind  there  may  be  several  in  the 
collection  of  his  works.  If  the  feather-end  of  his  pen 
is  just  traceable  in  "  Titus  Andronicus,"  the  point  of  it 
is  much  more  evident,  and  to  as  good  purpose  as  Beau- 
mont or  Fletcher  could  have  used  his  to,  at  the  best,  in 
"Pericles,  Prince  of  Tyre."  Nor  would  it  be  long 
before  he  would  submit  one  of  his  own  plays  for  appro- 
bation j  and  then  the  whole  of  his  dramatic  career  lies 
open  before  him,  with  every  possible  advantage  for 
perfecting  the  work,  for  the  undertaking  of  which  he 
was  l)etter  qualified  by  nature  than  probably  any  other 
man  whosoever  ;  for  he  knew  everything  about  acting, 
practically — about  the  play-house  and  its  capabilities, 
about  stage'  necessities,  about  the  personal  endowments 
and  individual  qualifications  of  each  of  the  company — 
so  that,  when  he  was  writing  a  play,  he  could  distribute 
the  parts  before  they  even  appeared  upon  paper,  and 
write  for  each  actor  with  the  very  living  form  of  the 
ideal  person  present  "in  his  mind's  eye,"  and  often  to 
his  bodily  sight ;  so  that  the  actual  came  in  aid  of  the 
ideal,  as  it  always  does  if  the  ideal  be  genuine,  and  the 
loftiest  conceptions  proved  the  truest  to  visible  nature. 


SHAKSPERE.  105 

This  close  relation  of  Shakspere  to  the  actual  leads 
us  to  a  general  and  remarkable  fact,  which  again  will 
lead  us  back  to  Shakspere.  All  the  great  writers  of 
Queen  Elizabeth's  time  were  men  of  affairs ;  they  were 
not  literary  men  merely,  in  the  general  acceptation  of 
tlfe  word  at  present.  Hooker  was  a  hard  working, 
sheep-keeping,  cradle-rocking  pastor  of  a  country  parish. 
Bacon's  legal  duties  were  innumerable  before  he  became 
Lord  Keeper  and  Lord  Chancellor.  Ealeigh  was  sol- 
dier, sailor,  adventurer,  courtier,  politician,  discoverer: 
indeed,  it  is  to  his  imprisonment  that  we  are  indebted 
for  much  the  most  ambitious  of  his  literary  under- 
takings, "  The  History  of  the  World,"  a  work  which 
for  simple  majesty  of  subject  and  style  is  hardly  to  be 
surpassed  in  prose.  Sidney,  at  the  age  of  three-and- 
twenty,  received  the  highest  praise  for  the  management 
of  a  secret  embassy  to  the  Emperor  of  Germany;  took 
the  deepest  and  most  active  interest  in  the  political 
affairs  of  his  country;  would  have  sailed  with  Sir 
Francis  Drake  for  South  American  discovery ;  and 
might  probably  have  been  king  of  poor  Poland,  if  the 
»]^ueen  had  not  been  too  selfish  or  wise  to  spare  him. 
The  whole  of  his  literary  productions  was  the  work  of 
his  spare  hours.  Spenser  himself,  who  was,  except 
Shakspere,  the  most  purely  a  literary  man  of  them  all, 
was  at  one  time  Secretary  to  the  Lord  Deputy  of 
Ireland,  and,  later  in  life.  Sheriff  of  Cork.  IS'or  is  the 
remark  true  only  of  the  writers  of  Elizabeth's  period, 
or  of  the  country  of  England. 

It  seems  to  us  one  of  the  greatest  advantages  that 
can  befall  a  poet,  to  be  drawn  out  of  his  study,  and  still 


106  SHAKSPEEE. 

more  out  of  the  chamter  of  imagery  in  his  own  thoughts, 
to  behold  and  speculate  upon  the  embodiment  of  Divine 
thoughts  and  purposes  in  men  and  their  affairs  around 
him.  Now  Sbakspere  had  no  public  appointment, 
but  he  reaped  all  the  advantage  which  such  could  have 
given  him,  and  more,  from  the  perfection  of  his 
dramatic  position.  It  was  not  with  making  plays  alone 
that  he  had  to  do ;  but,  himself  an  actor,  himself  in  a 
great  measure  the  owner  of  more  than  one  theatre, 
with  a  little  realm  far  more  difficult  to  rule  than  many 
a  kingdom — a  company,  namely,  of  actors — although 
possibly  less  difficult  from  the  fact  that  they  were  only 
men  and  boys ;  with  the  pecuniary  affairs  of  the 
management  likewise  under  his  supervision — he  must 
have  found,  in  the  relations  and  necessities  of  his  own 
profession,  not  merely  enough  of  the  actual  to  keep 
him  real  in  his  representations,  but  almost  sufficient 
opportunity  for  his  one  great  study,  that  of  mankind, 
independently  of  social  and  friendly  relations,  which 
in  his  case  were  of  the  widest  and  deepest. 

But  Shakspere  had  not  business  relations  merely : 
he  was  a  man  of  business.  There  is  a  common  blunder 
manifested,  both  in  theory  on  the  one  side,  and  in 
practice  on  the  other,  which  the  life  of  Shakspere  sets 
full  in  the  light.  The  theory  is,  that  genius  is  a  sort 
of  abnormal  development  of  the  imagination,  to  the 
detriment  and  loss  of  the  practical  powers,  and  that  a 
genius  is  therefore  a  kind  of  incapable,  incompetent 
being,  as  far  as  worldly  matters  are  concerned.  The 
most  complete  refutation  of  this  notion  lies  in  the  fact 
that  the  greatest  genius  the  world  has  known  was  a 


SHAKSPERE.  107 

successful  man  in  common  affairs.  Wtile  his  genius 
grew  in  strength,  fervour,  and  executive  power,  his 
worldly  condition  rose  as  well ;  he  became  a  man  of 
importance  in  the  eyes  of  his  townspeople,  by  whom 
he  would  not  have  been  honoured  if  he  had  not  made 
money ;  and  he  purchased  landed  property  in  his 
native  place  with  the  results  of  his  management  of  his 
theatres. 

The  practical  blunder  lies  in  the  notion  cherished 
occasionally  by  young  people  ambitious  of  literary 
distinction,  that  in  the  pursuit  of  such  things  they 
must  be  content  with  the  poverty  to  which  the  world 
dooms  its  greatest  men ;  accepting  their  very  poverty 
as  an  additional  proof  of  their  own  genius.  If  this 
means  that  the  poet  is  not  to  make  money  his  object, 
it  means  well :  no  man  should.  But  if  it  means  either 
that  the  world  is  unkind,  or  that  the  poet  is  not  to 
*'  gather  up  the  fragments,  that  nothing  be  lost,'*  it 
means  ill.  Shakspere  did  not  make  haste  to  be  rich. 
He  neither  blamed,  courted,  nor  neglected  the  world  : 
he  was  friendly  with  it.  He  could  not  have  pinched 
and  scraped  ;  but  neither  did  he  waste  or  neglect  his 
worldly  substance,  which  is  God's  gift  too.  Many 
immense  fortunes  have  been  made,  not  by  absolute 
dishonesty,  but  in  ways  to  which  a  man  of  genius 
ought  to  be  yet  more  ashamed  than  another  to  con- 
descend ;  but  it  does  not  therefore  follow  that  if  a  man 
of  genius  will  do  honest  work  he  will  not  make  a  fair 
livelihood  by  it,  which  for  all  good  results  of  intellect 
and  heart  is  better  than  a  great  fortune.  But  then 
Shakspere  began  with  doing  what  he  could.     He  did 


108  SHAKSPERE. 

not  consent  to  starve  until  the  world  should  recognize 
his  genius,  or  gmmhle  against  the  blindness  of  the 
nation  in  not  seeing  what  it  was  impossible  it  should 
see  before  it  was  fairly  set  forth.  He  began  at  once 
to  supply  something  which  the  world  wanted ;  for  it 
wants  many  an  honest  thing.  He  went  on  the  stage 
and  acted,  and  so  gained  power  to  reveal  the  genius 
which  he  possessed ;  and  the  world,  in  its  possible 
measure,  was  not  slow  to  recognize  it.  Many  a  young 
fellow  who  has  entered  life  with  the  one  ambition  of 
being  a  poet,  has  failed  because  he  did  not  perceive 
that  it  is  better  to  be  a  man  than  to  be  a  poet,  that  it 
is  his  first  duty  to  get  an  honest  living  by  doing  some 
honest  work  that  he  can  do,  and  fox  which  there  is  a 
demand,  although  it  may  not  be  the  most  pleasant 
employment.  Time  would  have  shown  whether  he 
was  meant  to  be  a  poet  or  not ;  and  if  he  had  been  no 
poet  he  would  have  been  no  beggar ;  and  if  he  had 
turned  out  a  poet,  it  would  have  been  partly  in  virtue 
of  that  experience  of  life  and  truth,  gained  in  his  case 
in  the  struggle  for  bread,  without  which,  gained  some- 
how, a  man  may  be  a  sweet  dreamer,  but  can  be  no 
strong  maker,  no  poet.  In  a  word,  here  is  the  English- 
man of  genius,  beginning  life  with  nothing,  and  dying, 
not  rich,  but  easy  and  honoured  j  and  this  by  doing 
what  no  one  else  could  do,  writing  dramas  in  which 
the  outward  grandeur  or  beauty  is  but  an  expoiient  of 
the  inward  worth ;  hiding  pearls  for  the  wise  even 
within  the  jewelled  play  of  the  variegated  bubbles  of 
fancy,  which  he  blew  while  he  wrought,  for  the  inno- 
cent delight  of  his  thoughtless  brothers  and  sisteis. 


SIIAKSPERE.  109 

Wherever  the  rainbow  of  Shakspere's  genius  stands, 
there  lies,  indeed,  at  the  foot  of  its  glorious  arch,  a 
golden  key,  which  will  open  the  secret  doors  of  truth, 
and  admit  the  humble  seeker  into  the  presence  of 
AVisdom,  who,  having  cried  in  the  streets  in  vain,  sits 
at  home  and  waits  for  him  who  will  come  to  find  her. 
And  Shakspere  had  cakes  and  ale,  although  he  was 
virtuous. 

But  what  do  we  know  about  the  character  of  Shak- 
spere 1  How  can  we  tell  the  inner  life  of  a  man  who 
has  uttered  himself  in  dramas,  in  which  of  course  it  is 
impossible  that  he  should  ever  speak  in  his  own 
person  ?  No  doubt  he  may  speak  his  own  sentiments 
through  the  mouths  of  many  of  his  persons ;  but  how 
are  we  to  know  in  what  cases  he  does  so  ? — At  least 
we  may  assert,  as  a  self-evident  negative,  that  a  passage 
treating  of  a  wide  question  put  into  the  mouth  of  a 
person  despised  and  rebuked  by  the  best  characters  in 
the  play,  is  not  likely  to  contain  any  cautiously  formed 
and  cherished  opinion  of  the  dramatist.  At  first  sight 
this  may  seem  almost  a  truism ;  but  we  have  only  to 
remind  our  readers  that  one  of  the  passages  oftenest 
(j noted  with  admiration,  .and  indeed  separately  printed 
iti)d  illuminated,  is  "The  Seven  Ages  of  Man,"  a 
jjassage  full  of  inhuman  contempt  for  humanity  and 
unbelief  in  its  destiny,  in  which  not  one  of  the  seven 
:iges  is  allowed  to  pass  over  its  poor  sad  stage  without 
a  sneer ;  and  that  this  passage  is  given  by  Shakspere 
to  the  blase  sensualist  Jaques  in  "  As  You  Like  it,"  a 
man  who,  the  good  and  wiseDuJce  says, has  been  as  vile  as 
it  is  possible  for  man  to  be,  so  vile  that  it  would  be  an 


110  SHAKSPERE. 

additional  sin  in  him  to  rebuke  sin  ;  a  man  who  never 
was  capable  of  seeing  what  is  good  in  any  man,  and 
hates  men's  vices  because  he  hates  themselves,  seein.q 
in  them  only  the  reflex  of  his  own  disgust.  Shalvsi)('ie 
knew  better  than  to  say  that  all  the  world  is  a  stage, 
and  all  the  men  and  women  merely  players.  He  had 
been  a  player  himself,  but  only  on  the  stage :  Jaques 
had  been  a  player  where  he  ought  to  have  been  a  true 
man.  The  whole  of  his  account  of  human  life  is  con- 
tradicted and  exposed  at  once  by  the  entrance,  the  very 
moment  whan  he  has  finished  his  wicked  burlesque,  of 
Ch'landOj  the  young  master,  carrying  Adam,  the  old 
servant,  upon  his  back.  The  song  that  immediately 
follows,  sings  true  :  "  Most  friendship  is  feigning, 
most  loving  mere  folly."  But  between  the  all  of  Jaques 
and  the  most  of  the  song,  there  is  just  the  difference 
between  earth  and  hell. — Of  course,  both  from  a 
literary  and  dramatic  point  of  view,  "The  Seven 
Ages  "  is  perfect. 

Now  let  us  make  one  positive  statement  to  balance 
the  other :  that  wherever  we  find,  in  the  mouth  of  a 
noble  character,  not  stock  sentiments  of  stage  virtue, 
but  appreciation  of  a  truth  which  it  needs  deep  thought 
and  experience  united  with  love  of  truth,  to  discover  or 
verify  for  one's  self,  especially  if  the  truth  be  of  a  sort 
which  most  men  will  fail  not  merely  to  recognize  as  a 
truth,  but  to  understand  at  all,  because  the  under- 
standing of  it  depends  on  the  foregoing  spiritual  per- 
ception— then  we  think  we  may  receive  the  passage  as 
an  expression  of  the  inner  soul  of  the  writer.  He 
must  have  seen  it  before  he  could  have  said  it ;  an(1 


SHAKSPERE.  lit 

to  see  such  a  truth  is  to  love  it ;  or  rather,  love  of  truth 
in  the  general  must  have  preceded  and  enabled  to  the 
discovery  of  it.  Such  a  passage  is  the  speech  of  the 
Duke^  opening  the  second  act  of  the  play  just  referred 
to,  "  As  You  Like  it."  The  lesson  it  contains  is,  that 
the  well-being  of  a  man  cannot  be  secured  except  he 
partakes  of  the  ills  of  life,  "  the  penalty  of  Adam." 
And  it  seems  to  us  strange  that  the  excellent  editors  of 
the  Cambridge  edition,  now  in  the  course  of  publica- 
tion— a  great  boon  to  all  students  of  Shakspere — 
sliould  not  have  perceived  that  the  original  reading, 
that  of  the  folios,  is  the  right  one, — 

**  Here  feel  we  not  the  penalty  of  Adam  ?  " 

which,  with  the  point  of  interrogation  supplied,  fur- 
nishes the  true  meaning  of  the  whole  passage  ;  namely, 
that  the  penalty  of  Adam  is  just  what  makes  the 
"  wood  more  free  from  peril  than  the  envious  court," 
teaching  each  "not  to  think  of  himself  more  highly 
than  he  ought  to  think." 

But  Shak?pere,  although  everywhere  felt,  is  nowhere 
r>een  in  his  plays.  He  is  too  true  an  artist  to  show  his 
own  face  from  behind  the  play  of  life  with  which  he 
tills  his  stage.  What  we  can  find  of  him  there  we 
must  find  by  regarding  the  whole,  and  allowing  the 
si>irituai  evssence  of  the  whole  to  find  its  way  to  our 
})rain,  and  thence  to  our  heart.  The  student  of  Shak- 
spere becomes  imbued  with  the  idea  of  his  character. 
It  exhales  from  his  writings.  And  when  we  have 
found  the  main  drift  of  any  play — the  grand  rounding 
of  the  whole — then  by  that  we  may  interpret  indi- 


112 


SHAKSPEEE. 


vidual  passages.  It  is  alone  in  their  relation  to  the 
whole  that  we  can  do  them  full  justice,  and  in  their 
relation  to  the  whole  that  we  discover  the  mind  of  the 
master. 

But  we  have  another  source  of  more  direct  enlighten- 
ment as  to  Shakspere  himself.  We  only  say  more 
direct,  not  more  certain  or  extended  enlightenment. 
"We  have  one  collection  of  poems  in  which  he  speaks 
in  his  own  person  and  of  himself.  Of  course  we  reier 
to  his  sonnets.  Though  these  occupy,  with  their 
presentation  of  himself,  such  a  small  relative  space, 
they  yet  admirably  round  and  complete,  to  our  eyes, 
the  circle  of  his  individuality.  In  them  and  the  plays 
the  common  saying — one  of  the  truest — that  extremes 
meet,  is  verified.  No  man  is  complete  in  whom  there 
are  no  extremes,  or  in  whom  those  extremes  do  not 
meet.  Now  the  very  individuality  of  Shakspere, 
judged  by  his  dramas  alone,  has  been  declared  non- 
existent ;  while  in  the  sonnets  he  manifests  some  of 
the  deepest  phases  of  a  healthy  self-consciousness.  We 
do  not  intend  to  enter  into  the  still  unsettled  question 
as  to  whether  these  sonnets  were  addressed  to  a  man 
or  a  woman.  We  have  scarcely  a  doubt  left  on  the 
question  ourselves,  as  will  be  seen  from  the  argument 
we  found  on  our  conviction.  We  cannot  say  we  feel 
much  interest  in  the  other  question.  If  a  man,  what 
man  f  A  few  placed  at  the  end,  arranged  as  they 
have  come  down  to  us,  are  beyond  doubt  addressed  to 
a  woman.  But  the  difference  in  tone  between  these 
and  the  others  we  think  very  remarkable.  Possibly 
«t  the  time  they  were  written — most  of  them  early  in  hia 


SHAKSPERE.  113 

lifp,  as  it  appears  to  us,  although  they  were  not  published 
till  the  year  1609,  when  he  was  forty-five  years  of  age, 
IMeres  referring  to  them  in  the  year  1598,  eleven  years 
before,  as  known  *' among  his  private  friends" — ^he 
had  not  known  such  women  as  he  knew  afterwards, 
and  hence  the  true  devotion  of  his  soul  is  given  to  a 
friend  of  his  own  sex.  Gervinus,  whose  lectures  on 
Shakspere,  profound  and  lofty  to  a  degree  unattempted 
by  any  other  interpreter,  we  are  glad  to  find  have  been 
(lone  into  a  suitable  English  translation,  under  the 
superintendence  of  the  author  himself — Gervinus  says 
somewhere  in  them  that,  as  Shakspere  lived  and  wrote, 
his  ideal  of  womanhood  grew  nobler  and  purer.  Cer- 
tainly the  woman  to  whom  the  last  few  of  these 
sonnets  are  addressed  was  neither  noble  nor  pnie. 
We  think,  in  this  matter  at  least,  they  record  one  of 
his  early  experiences. 

We  shall  briefly  indicate  what  we  find  in  these 
sonnets  about  the  man  himself,  and  shall  commence 
with  what  is  least  pleasing  and  of  least  value. 

We  must  confess,  then,  that,  probably  soon  after  he 
came  first  to  London,  he,  then  a  married  man,  had  an 
intrigue  with  a  married  woman,  of  which  there  are 
indications  that  he  was  afterwards  deeply  ashamed. 
.  One  little  incident  seems  curiously  traceable  :  that  he 
had  given  her  a  set  of  tablets  which  his  friend  had 
given  him  ;  and  the  sonnet  in  which  he  excuses  him- 
self to  his  friend  for  having  done  so,  seems  to  us  the 
only  piece  of  special  pleading,  and  therefore  nngenuine 
expression,  in  the  whole.  This  friend,  to  whom  the 
rest  of  the  sonnets  are  addressed,  made  the  acquaintance 

1 


114  SIIAKSPERE. 

of  this  woman,  and  both  were  false  to  Shakspere. 
Even  Shakspere  could  not  keep  the  love  of  a  worthless 
woman.  So  much  the  better  for  him  ;  but  it  is  a  sad 
story  at  best.  Yet  even  in  this  environment  of  evil 
we  see  the  nobility  of  the  man,  and  his  real  self  The 
sonnets  in  which  he  mourns  his  friend's  falsehood, 
forgives  him,  and  even  finds  excuses  for  him,  that  he 
may  not  lose  his  own  love  of  him,  are,  to  our  minds, 
amongst  the  most  beautiful,  as  they  are  the  most 
profound.  Of  these  are  the  33rd  and  34th.  'Not  does 
he  stop  here,  but  proceeds  in  the  following,  the  35th, 
to  comfort  his  friend  in  his  grief  for  his  offence,  even 
accusing  himself  of  offence  in  having  made  more 
excuse  for  his  fault  than  the  fault  needed!  But  to 
leave  this  part  of  his  history,  which,  as  far  as  we 
know,  stands  alone,  and  yet  cannot  with  truth  be 
passed  by,  any  more  than  the  story  of  the  crime  of 
David,  though  in  this  case  there  is  no  comparison  to 
be  made  between  the  two  further  than  the  primary 
fact,  let  us  look  at  the  one  reality  which,  from  a 
spiritual  point  of  view,  independently  of  the  literary 
beauties  of  these  poems,  causes  them  to  stand  all  but 
alone  in  literature.  We  mean  what  has  been  un- 
avoidably touched  upon  already,  the  devotion  of  his 
friendship.  We  have  said  this  makes  the  poems  stand 
all  hut  alone ;  for  we  ought  to  be  better  able  to  under- 
stand these  poems  of  Shakspere,  from  the  fact  that  in 
our  day  has  appeared  the  only  other  poem  which  is 
like  these,  and  which  casts  back  a  light  upon  them. 

•*  Yet  turn  thee  to  the  doubtful  shore, 

Where  thy  first  form  was  made  a  man: 


SHAKSPERE.  115 

I  loved  thee,  spirit,  and  love  j  nor  can 
The  soul  of  Shakspeare  love  thee  more.** 

So  sings  the  Poet  of  our  day,  in  the  loftiest  of  his 
poems — "  In  Memoriam  " — addressing  the  spirit  of  his 
vanished  friend.  In  the  midst  of  his  song  arises  the 
thought  of  the  Poet  of  all  time,  who  loved  his  friend 
too,  and  would  have  lost  him  in  a  way  far  worse  than 
death,  had  not  liis  love  been  too  strong  even  for  that 
death,  alone  ghastly,  which  threatened  to  cut  the 
golden  chain  that  hound  them,  and  part  them  by  the 
gulf  impassable.  Tennyson's  friend  had  never  wronged 
him;  and  to  the  divineness  of  Shakspere's  love  is 
added  that  of  forgiveness.  Such  love  as  this  between 
man  and  man  is  rare,  and  therefore  to  the  mind  which 
is  in  itself  no  way  rare,  incredible,  because  unintel- 
ligible. But  though  all  the  commonest  things  are 
very  divine,  yet  divine  individuality  is  and  will  be  a 
rare  thing  at  any  given  period  on  the  earth.  Faith,  in 
its  ideal  sense,  will  always  be  hard  to  find  on  the  earth. 
But  perhaps  this  kind  of  affection  between  man  and 
man  may,  as  Coleridge  indicates  in  his  "  Table  Talk," 
have  been  more  common  in  the  reigns  of  Elizabeth 
and  Jamos  than  it  is  now.  There  is  a  certain  dread  of 
the  demonstrative  in  the  present  day,  which  may, 
perhaps,  be  carried  into  regions  where  it  is  out  of  place, 
and  hinder  the  development  of  a  devotion  which  must 
be  real,  and  grand,  and  divine,  if  one  man  such  as 
Shakspere  or  Tennyson  has  ever  felt  it.  If  one  has 
felt  it,  humanity  may  claim  it.  And  surely  He  who 
is  the  Son  of  man  has  verified  the  claim.  We  believe 
there  are  indeed  few  of  us  who  know  what  to  love  our 
i2 


116 


SHAKSPERE. 


neighbour  as  ourselves  means  ;  but  when  we  find  a  man 
here  and  there  in  the  course  of  ^centuries  who  does,  we 
may  take  this  man  as  the  prophet  of  coming  good  for 
his  race,  his  prophecy  being  himself. 

But  next  to  the  interest  of  knowing  that  a  man 
could  love  so  well,  comes  the  association  of  this  fact 
with  his  art.  He  who  could  look  abroad  upon  men, 
and  understand  them  all — who  stood,  as  it  were,  in  the 
wide-open  gates  of  his  palace,  and  admitted  with 
welcome  every  one  who  came  in  sight — had  in  the 
inner  places  of  that  palace  one  chamber  in  which  he 
met  his  friend,  and  in  which  his  whole  soul  went  forth 
to  understand  the  soul  of  his  friend.  The  man  to 
whom  nothing  in  humanity  was  common  or  unclean ; 
in  whom  the  most  remarkable  of  his  artistic  morals  is 
fair-play ;  who  fills  our  hearts  with  a  saintly  love  for 
Cordelia  and  an  admiration  of  Sir  John  Falstaff  the 
lost  gentleman,  mournful  even  in  the  height  of  our 
laughter  ;  who  could  make  an  AutolyctLS  and  a  Macbeth 
both  human,  and  an  Ariel  and  a  Puck  neither  human 
— this  is  the  man  who  loved  best.  And  we  believe 
that  this  depth  of  capacity  for  loving  lay  at  the  root 
of  all  his  knowledge  of  men  and  women,  and  all  his 
dramatic  pre-eminence.  The  heart  is  more  intelligent 
than  the  intellect.  Well  says  the  poet  Matthew 
Raydon,  who  has  hardly  left  anything  behind  him  but 
the  lamentation  over  Sir  Philip  Sidney  in  which  the 
lines  occur, — 

*'  He  that  hath  love  and  judgment  too 
Sees  more  than  any  other  do." 

Simply,  we  believe  that  this,  not  this  only,  but  thif 


SHAKSPERE.  117 

more  than  any  other  endowment,  made  Shakspere  the 
artist  he  was,  in  providing  him  all  the  material  of 
humanity  to  work  upon,  and  keeping  him  to  the  true 
spirit  of  its  use.  Love  looking  forth  upon  strife,  under- 
stood it  all.  Love  is  the  true  revealer  of  secrets, 
because  it  makes  one  with  the  object  regarded. 

"  But,"  say  some  impatient  readers,  '*  when  shall  we 
have  done  with  Shakspere?  There  is  no  end  to  this 
writing  about  him."  It  will  be  a  bad  day  for  England 
when  we  have  done  with  Shakspere;  for  that  will 
imply,  along  with  the  loss  of  him,  that  we  are  no 
longer  capable  of  understanding  him.  Should  that 
time  ever  come,  Heaven  grant  the  generation  which 
does  not  understand  him  at  least  the  grace  to  keep  its 
pens  off  him,  which  will  by  no  means  follow  as  a 
necessary  consequence  of  the  non-intelligence !  But 
the  writing  about  Shakspere  which  has  been  hitherto 
so  plentiful  must  do  good  just  in  proportion  as  it  directs 
attention  to  him  and  gives  aid  to  the  understanding  of 
him.  And  while  the  utterances  of  to-day  pass  away, 
the  children  of  to-morrow  are  born,  and  require  a  new 
utterance  for  their  fresh  need  from  those  who,  having 
gone  before,  have  already  tasted  life  and  Shakspere,  and 
can  give  some  little  help  to  further  progress  than  their 
own,  by  tolling  the  following  generation  what  they  have 
found.  Suppose  that  this  cry  had  been  raised  last 
century,  after  good  Dr.  Johnson  had  ceased  to  produce 
to  the  eyes  of  men  the  facts  about  his  own  incapacity 
which  he  presumed  to  be  criticisms  of  Shakspere,  where 
would  our  aids  be  now  to  the  understanding  of  the 
dramatist  1    Our  own  conviction  is,  when  we  reflect 


118 


SHAKSPERE. 


with  how  much  laboui  we  have  deepened  onr  know- 
ledge of  him,  and  thereby  found  in  him  the  best — for 
the  best  lies  not  on  the  surface  for  the  careless  reader 
— our  own  conviction  is,  that  not  half  has  been  done 
that  ought  to  be  done  to  help  young  people  at  least  to 
understand  the  master  mind  of  their  country.  Few 
among  them  can  ever  give  the  attention  or  work  to  it 
that  we  have  given;  but  much  may  be  done  with 
judicious  aid.  And  a  profound  knowledge  'of  their 
greatest  writer  would  do  more  than  almost  anything 
else  to  bind  together  as  Englishmen,  in  a  true  and 
unselfish  way,  the  hearts  of  the  coming  generations ; 
for  his  works  are  our  country  in  a  convex  magic 
mirror. 

When  a  man  finds  that  every  time  he  reads  a  book 
not  -only  does  some  obscurity  melt  away,  but  deeper 
depths,  which  he  had  not  before  seen,  dawn  upon  him, 
e  is  not  likely  to  think  that  the  time  for  ceasing  to 
write  about  the  book  has  come.  And  certainly  in 
Shakspere,  as  in  all  true  artistic  work,  as  in  nature 
herself,  the  depths  are  not  to  be  revealed  utterly; 
while  every  new  generation  needs  a  new  aid  towards 
discovering  itself  and  its  own  thoughts  in  these  forms 
of  the  past.  And  of  all  that  read  about  Shakspere 
there  are  few  whom  more  than  one  or  two  utterances 
have  reached.  The  speech  or  the  writing  must  go 
forth  to  find  the  soil  for  the  growth  of  its  kernel  of 
truth.  We  shall,  therefore,  with  the  full  consciousness 
that  perhaps  more  has  been  already  said  and  written 
about  Shakspere  than  about  any  other  writer,  yet 
ventuie  to  add  to  the  mass  by  a  few  general  xemarkSi 


SHAKSPEEE.  119 

And  first  we  would  remind  our  readers  of  the  marvel 
of  the  combination  in  Shakspere  of  such  a  high  degree 
of  two  faculties,  one  of  which  is  generally  altogether 
inferior  to  the  other :  the  faculties  of  reception  and 
production.  Rarely  do  we  find  that  great  receptive 
power,  brought  into  operation  either  by  reading  or  by 
observation,  is  combined  with  originality  of  thought. 
Some  hungers  are  quite  satisfied  by  taking  in  what 
others  have  thought  and  felt  and  done.  By  the 
assimilation  of  this  food  many  minds  grow  and  prosper  ^ 
but  other  minds  feed  far  more  upon  what  rises  from 
their  own  depths ;  in  the  answers  they  are  compelled 
to  provide  to  the  questions  that  come  unsought ;  in  the 
theories  they  cannot  help  constructing  for  the  inclu- 
sion in  one  whole  of  the  various  facts  around  them, 
which  seem  at  first  sight  to  strive  with  each  other  like 
the  atoms  of  a  chaos ;  in  the  examination  of  those 
impulses  of  hidden  origin  which  at  one  time  indicate  a 
height  of  being  far  above  the  thinker's  present  condi- 
tion, at  another  a  gulf  of  evil  into  which  he  may  pos- 
sibly fall.  But  in  Shakspere  the  two  powers  of 
beholding  and  originating  meet  like  the  re-joining  halves 
of  a  sphere.  A  man  who  thinks  his  own  thoughts 
much,  will  often  walk  through  London  streets  and  see 
nothing.  In  the  man  who  observes  only,  every  passing 
object  mirrors  itself  in  its  prominent  peculiarities, 
having  a  kind  of  harmony  with  all  the  rest,  but  arouses 
no  magician  from  the  inner  chamber  to  charm  and  chain 
its  image  to  his  purpose.  In  Shakspere,  on  the  con- 
trary, every  outer  form  of  humanity  and  nature  spoke 
to  that  eyei^moving,  self-vindicating— we  had  almost 


120  SIIAKSPERE. 

Baid,  and  in  a  sense  it  would  be  trae,  self-generating — 
humanity  within  him.  The  sound  of  any  action  with- 
out him,  struck  in  him  just  the  chord  which,  in  motion 
in  him,  would  have  produced  a  similar  action.  When 
anything  was  done,  he  felt  as  if  he  were  doing  it — per- 
ception and  origination  conjoining  in  one  conscious- 
ness. 

But  to  this  gift  was  united  the  gift  of  utterance,  or 
representation.  Many  a  man  both  receives  and  gene- 
rates who,  somehow,  cannot  represent.  Nothing  is 
more  disappointing  sometimes  than  our  first  experience 
of  the  artistic  attempts  of  a  man  who  has  roused  our 
expectations  by  a  social  display  of  familiarity  with,  and 
command  over,  the  subjects  of  conversation.  Have  we 
not  sometimes  found  that  when  such  a  one  sought  to 
give  vital  or  artistic  form  to  these  thoughts,  so  that 
they  might  not  be  born  and  die  in  the  same  moment 
upon  his  lips,  but  might  existj  a  poor,  weak,  faded 
simulacrum  alone  was  the  result?  Now  Shakspere 
was  a  great  talker,  who  enraptured  the  listeners,  and 
was  himself  so  rapt  in  his.  speech  that  he  could  scarcely 
come  to  a  close ;  but  when  he  was  alone  with  his  art, 
then  and  then  only  did  he  rise  to  the  height  of  his 
great  argument,  and  all  the  talk  was  but  as  the  fallen 
mortar  and  stony  chips  lying  about  the  walls  of  the 
great  temple  of  his  drama. 

But,  along  with  aU  this  wealth  of  artistic  speech,  an 
artistic  virtue  of  an  opposite  nature  becomes  remark- 
able :  his  reticence.  How  often  might  he  not  say  fine 
things,  particularly  poetic  things,  when  he  does  not, 
because  it  would  not  suit  the  character  or  the  time ! 


SHAKSPERE.  121 

How  many  delicate  points  are  there  not  'in  his  plays 
which  we  only  discover  after  many  readings,  because 
he  will  not  put  a  single  tone  of  success  into  the  flow  of 
natural  utterance,  to  draw  our  attention  to  the  triumph 
of  the  author,  and  jar  with  the  all-important  reality  of 
his  production  !  Wherever  an  author  obtrudes  his  own 
self-importance,  an  unreality  is  the  consequence,  of  a 
nature  similar  to  that  which  we  feel  in  the  old  moral 
plays,  when  historical  and*  allegorical  personages,  such 
as  Julius  Cceear  and  Charity,  for  instance,  are  intro- 
duced at  the  same  time  on  the  same  stage,  acting  in  the 
same  story.  Shakspere  never  points  to  any  stroke  of 
his  own  wit  or  art.  We  may  find  it  or  not :  there  it 
is,  and  no  matter  if  no  one  see  it ! 

Much  has  been  disputed  about  the  degree  of  con- 
sciousness of  his  own  art  possessed  by  Shakspere : 
whether  he  did  it  "by  a  grand  yet  blind  impulse,  or 
whether  he  knew  what  he  wanted  to  do,  and  knowingly 
used  the  means  to  arrive  at  that  «nd.  ]N'ow  we  cannot 
here  enter  upon  the  question ;  but  we  would  recom- 
mend any  of  our  readers  who  are  interested  in  it  not  to 
attempt  to  make  up  their  minds  upon  it  before  con- 
sidering a  passage  in  another  of  his  poems,  which  may 
throw  some  light  on  the  subject  for  them.  It  is  the 
description  of  a  painting,  contained  in  "  The  Eape  of 
Lucrece,"  towards  the  end  of  the  poem.  Its  very 
minuteness  involves  the  expression  of  principles,  and 
reveals  that,  in  relation  to  an  art  not  his  own,  he  could 
hold  principles  of  execution,  and  indicate  perfection  of 
finish,  which,  to  say  the  least,  must  proceed  from  a 
general  capacity  for  art,  and  therefore  might  find  an 


122  SIIAKSPERB. 

equally  conscious  operation  in  his  own  pecuKar  pro- 
vince of  it.  For  our  own  part,  we  think  that  his 
results  are  a  perfect  combination  of  the  results  of  con- 
sciousness and  unconsciousness;  consciousness  where 
the  arrangements  of  the  play,  outside  the  region  of 
inspiration,  required  the  care  of  the  wakeful  intellect ; 
unconsciousness  where  the  subject  itself  bore  him  aloft 
on  the  wings  of  its  own  creative  delight. 

There  is  another  manifestation  of  his  power  which 
will  astonish  those  who  consider  it.  It  is  this  :  that, 
while  he  was  able  to  go  down  to  the  simple  and  grand 
realities  of  human  nature,  which  are  all  tragic;  and 
while,  therefore,  he  must  rejoice  most  in  sach  contem- 
plations of  human  nature  as  find  fit  outlet  in  a  '*  Ham- 
let," a  "  Lear,"  a  "  Timon,"  or  an  "  OtheUo,"  the 
tragedies  of  Doubt,  Ingratitude,  and  Love,  he  can  yet, 
when  he  chooses,  float  on  the  very  surface  of  human 
nature,  as  in  "  Love's  Labour's  Lost,*'  "  The  Merry 
Wives  of  Windsor,"  "The  Comedy  of  Errors,"  "The 
Taming  of  the  Shrew ;"  or  he  can  descend  half  way  as 
it  were,  and  there  remain  suspended  in  the  characters 
and  feelings  of  ordinary  nice  people,  who,  interesting 
enough  to  meet  in  society,  have  neither  received  that 
development,  nor  are  placed  in  those  circumstances, 
which  admit  of  the  highest  and  simplest  poetic  treat- 
ment. In  these  he  wiU  bring  out  the  ordinary  noble 
or  the  ordinary  vicious.  Of  this  nature  are  most  of  his 
comedies,  in  which  he  gives  an  ideal  representation  of 
common  social  life,  and  steers  perfectly  clear  of  what 
in  such  relations  and  surroundings  would  be  heroics. 
Look  how  steadily  he  keeps  the  noble-iiimded  yoatb 


8HAKSPEBE.  123 

Orlando  in  this  middle  region  j  and  look  how  the  best 
comes  out  at  last  in  the  wayward  and  recalcitrant  and 
bizarre,  but  honest  and  true  natures  of  BeatHce  and 
Benedick ;  and  this  without  any  untruth  to  the  nature 
of  comedy,  although  the  circumstances  border  on  the 
tragic.  Wlien  he  wants  to  give  the  deeper  affairs  of 
tlie  heart,  he  throws  the  whole  at  once  out  of  the  social 
circle  with  its  multiform  restraints.  As  in  "  Hamlet " 
the  stage  on  which  the  whole  is  acted  is  really  the  heart 
of  Hamletj  so  he  makes  his  visible  stage  as  it  were, 
slope  off  into  the  misty  infinite,  with  a  grey,  starless 
heaven  overhead,  and  Hades  open  beneath  his  feet. 
Hence  young  people  brought  up  in  the  country  under- 
stand the  tragedies  far  sooner  than  they  can  compre- 
hend the  comedies.  It  needs  acquaintance  with  sociely 
and  social  ways  to  clear  up  the  latter. 

The  remarks  we  have  made  on  "  Hamlet "  by  way  of 
illustration,  lead  us  to  point  out  how  Shakspere  pre 
pares,  in  some  of  his  plays,  a  stage  suitable  for  all  the 
representation.  In  "  A  Midsummer  Night's  Dream  " 
the  place  which  gives  tone  to  the  whole  is  a  midnight 
wood  in  the  first  flush  and  youthful  delight  of  summer. 
In  "  As  You  Like  it "  it  is  a  daylight  wood  in  spring, 
full  of  morning  freshness,  with  a  cold  wind  now  and 
then  blowing  through  the  half-clothed  boughs.  In 
"  The  Tempest "  it  is  a  solitary  island,  circled  by  the 
mysterious  sea-horizon,  over  which  what  may  come  who 
can  tell  1 — a  place  where  the  magician  may  work  his 
will,  and  have  aU  nature  at  the  beck  of  his  superior 
knowledge. 

The  only  writer  who  would  have  bad  a  chance  of 


124.  SHAKSPEBE. 

rivalling  Shakspere  in  his  own  walk,  if  he  had  been 
born  in  the  same  period  of  English  history,  is  Chaucer, 
lie  has  the  same  gift  of  individualizing  the  general, 
and  idealizing  the  portrait.  But  the  best  of  the 
dramatic  writers  of  Shakspere's  time,  in  their  desire  of 
dramatic  individualization,  forget  the  modifying  multi- 
formity belonging  to  individual  humanity.  In  their 
anxiety  to  present  a  character ,  they  take,  as  it  were,  a 
human  mould,  label  it  wtth  a  certain  peculiarity,  and 
then  fill  in  speeches  and  forms  according  to  the  label. 
Thus  the  indications  of  character,  of  peculiarity,  so 
predominate,  the  whole  is  so  much  of  one  colour,  that 
the  result  resembles  one  of  those  allegorical  personifi- 
cations in  which,  as  much  as  possible,  everything 
human  is  eliminated  except  what  belongs  to  the  pecu- 
liarity, the  personification.  How  different  is  it  with 
Shakspere's  representations!  He  knows  that  no 
human  being  ever  was  like  that.  He  makes  his  most 
peculiar  characters  speak  very  much  like  other  people  ; 
and  it  is  only  over  the  whole  that  their  peculiarities 
manifest  themselves  with  indubitable  plainness.  The 
one  apparent  exception  is  JaqueSy  in  "As  You  Like 
it."  But  there  we  must  remember  that  Shakspere  is 
representing  a  man  who  so  chooses  to  represent  him- 
self. He  is  a  man  in  Ms  humour^  or  his  own  peculiar 
and  chosen  affectation.  Jaques  is  the  writer  of  his 
own  part ;  for  with  him  "  all  the  world's  a  stage,  and 
aU  the  men  and  women,"  himself  first,  "merely 
players."  We  have  his  own  presentation  of  himself, 
not,  first  of  all,  as  he  is,  but  as  he  chooses  to  be  taken. 
Of  course  his  real  self  does  come  out  in  it,  for  no 


SHAKSPEKB.  125 

can  seem  altogether  other  than  he  is ;  and  besides,  the 
Duke,  who  sees  quite  through  him,  rebukes  him  in  the 
manner  ah-eady  referred  to ;  but  it  is  his  affectation 
th  it  gives  him  the  unnatural  peculiarity  of  his  modes 
ami  speeches.     He  wishes  them  to  be  such. 

There  is,  then,  for  every  one  of  Shakspere's  charac- 
ters the  firm  ground  of  humanity,  upon  which  the 
\\i'e<ls,  as  well  as  the  flowers,  glorious  or  fantastic,  as 
the  case  may  be,  show  themselves.  His  more  heroic 
persons  are'  the  most  profoundly  human.  Nor  are  his 
villains  unhuman,  although  inhuman  enough.  Com- 
pared with  Marlowe's  Jew,  Shylock  is  a  terrible  man 
beside  a  dreary  monster^  and,  as  far  as  logic  and  the  lex 
talionis  go,  has  the  best  of  the  argument.  It  is  the 
strength  of  human  nature  itself  that  makes  crime 
strong.  Wickedness  could  have  no  power  of  itself :  it 
lives  by  the  perverted  powers  of  good.  And  so  great 
is  Shakspere's  syinpath}"  with  ShijlocJc  even,  in  the 
hard  and  unjust  doom  that  overtakes  him,  that  he  dis- 
misses him  with  some  of  the  spare  sympathies  of  the 
more  tender-hearted  of  his  spectators,  llowhere  is  the 
justice  of  genius  more  plain  than  in  Shakspere's  utter 
freedom  from  party-spirit,  even  with  regard  to  his 
own  creations.  Each  character  shall  set  itself  forth- 
from  its  own  point  of  view,  and  only  in  the  choice  and 
scope  of  the  whole  shall  the  judgment  of  the  poet  be 
beh-eld.  .  He  never  allows  his  opinion  to  come  out  to 
the  dan:aging  of  the  individual's  own  self-presentation. 
He  knows  well  that  for  the  worst  something  can  be 
said,  and  that  a  feeling  of  justice  and  his  own  right 
will  be  strong  in  the  mind  of  a  man  who  is  yet  swayed 


126 


SIIAKSPERE. 


by  perfect  saifishness.  Therefore  the  false  man  ia  not 
discoverable  in  his  speech,  not  merely  because  liio 
villain  will  talk  as  like  a  true  man  as  he  may,  liit 
because  seldom  is  the  villainy  clear  to  the  villain's  own 
mind.  It  is  impossible  for  us  to  determine  whether, 
in  their  fierce  bandying  of  the  lie,  BoVmjhroke  or 
Norfolk  spoke  the  truth.  Doubtless  each  believed 
the  other  to  be  the  villain  that  he  called  him.  And 
Shakspere  has  no  desire  or  need  to  act  the  historian  in 
the  decision  of  that  question.  He  leaves  his  reader  in 
full  sympathy  with  the  perplexity  of  Richard;  as 
puzzled,  in  fact,  as  if  he  had  been  present  at  the  in- 
terrupted combat. 

If  every  writer  could  write  up  to  his  own  best,  we 
should  have  faj  less  to  marvel  at  in  Shakspere.  It  is 
in  great  measure  the  wealth  of  Shakspere's  suggestions, 
giving  him  abundance  of  the  best  to  choose  from,  that 
lifts  him  so  high  above  those  Avho,  having  felt  the 
inspiration  of  a  good  idea,  are  forced  to  ^o  on  writing, 
constructing,  carpentering,  with  dreary  handicraft, 
before  the  exhausted  faculty  has  recovered  sufficiently 
to  generate  another.  And  then  comes  in  the  unerring 
choice  of  the  best  of  those  sugges  ions.  Yet  if  any  one 
wishes  to  see  what  variety  of  the  same  kind  of  thoughts 
he  could  produce,  let  him  examine  the  treatment  of  the 
B9,me  business  in  different  plays  ;  as,  for  instance,  the 
way  in  which  instigation  to  a  crime  is  managed  in 
"  Macbeth,"  where  Macbeth  tempts  the  two  mur»lerers 
to  kill  Banquo ;  in  "King  John,"  when  the  Kiixj 
tempts  Hubert  to  kiU  Arthur;  in  "The  Tempest," 
when  Antaiiio  tempts  Sebastian  to    kill  Aloiizo ;   in 


SHAKSPERE.  127 

"  As  You  Like  it,"  %hen  Oliver  instigates  Cliarles  to 
kill  Orlando ;  and  in  "  Hamlet,"  where  Clmidms  urges 
Laertes  to  the  murder  of  HaiiUet. 

He  shows  no  anxiety  about  being  original.  When 
a  man  is  full  of  his  work  he  forgets  himself.  In  his 
desire  to  produce  a  good  play  he  lays  hold  upon  any 
material  that  offers  itself.  He  will  even  take  a  bad 
play  and  make  a  good  one  of  it.  One  of  tlie  most 
remarkable  discoveries  to  the  student  of  Shakspere  is 
the  hide-bound  poverty  of  some  of  the  stories,  which, 
informed  by  his  life-power,  become  forms  of  strength, 
richness,  and  grace.  He  does  what  the  Spirit  in 
"  Comus  "  says  the  music  he  heard  might  do, — 

**  create  a  soul 
Under  the  ribs  of  death  ;" 

and  then  death  is  straightway  '*  clotlied  upon."  And 
nowhere  is  the  refining  operation  of  his  genius  more 
evident  than  in  the  purification  of  these  stories. 
Characters  and  incidents  which  would  have  been 
honey  and  nuts  to  Beaumont  and  Fleitcher  are,  not- 
withstanding their  dramatic  recommendations,  entirely 
remodelled  by  him.  The  fair  Ophelia  is,  in  the  old 
tale,  a  common  woman,  and  Hamlet'' s  mistress ;  while 
the  policy  of  the  Lady  of  Belmont,  who  in  the  old 
story  occupies  the  place  for  which  he  invented  the 
lovely  Portia,  upon  which  policy  the  whole  story 
turns,  is  such  that  it  is  as  unfit  to  set  forth  in  our 
pages  as  it  was  unfit  for  Shakspere.'s  purposes  of  art. 
His  noble  art  refuses  to  work  upon  base  matter.  He 
sees  at  once  the  capabilities  of  a  tale,  but  he  will  not 
use  it  except  he  may  do  with  it  what  he  pleases. 


128  SHAKSPEEE. 

If  we  might  here  offer  some  assistance  to  the  yonng 
student  who  wants  to  help  himself,  we  would  suggest 
that  to  follow,  in  a  measure,  Plutarch's  fashion  of  com- 
parison, will  be  the  most  helpful  guide  to  the  under- 
standing of  the  poet.  Let  the  reader  take  any  two 
characters,  and  putting  them  side  by  side,  look  first 
for  differences,  and  then  for  resemblances  between 
them,  with  the  causes  of  each ;  or  let  him  make  a 
wider  attempt,  and  setting  two  plays  one  over  against 
the  other,  compare  or  contrast  them,  and  see  what  will 
be  the  result.  Let  him,  for  instance,  take  the  two 
characters  Hamlet  and  Brutus,  and  compare  their  be- 
ginnings and  endings,  the  resemblances  in  their  charac- 
ters, the  differences  in  their  conduct,  the  likeness  and 
unlikeness  of  what  was  required  of  them,  the  circum- 
stances in  which  action  was  demanded  of  each,  the 
helps  or  hindrances  each  had  to  the  working  out  of  the 
problem  of  his  life,  the  way  in  which  each  encounters 
the  supernatural,  or  any  other  question  that  may 
suggest  itself  in  reading  either  of  the  plays,  ending  off 
with  the  main  lesson  taught  in  each ;  and  he  will  be 
astonished  to  find,  if  he  has  not  already  discovered  it, 
what  a  rich  mine  of  intellectual  and  spiritual  wealth 
is  laid  open  to  his  delighted  eyes.  Perhaps  not  the 
least  valuable  end  to  be  so  gained  is,  that  the  young 
Englishman,  who  wants  to  be  delivered  from  any 
temptation  to  think  himself  the  centre  around  which 
the  universe  revolves,  will  be  aided  in  his  endeavours 
after  honourable  humility  by  looking  up  to  the  man 
who  towers,  like  Saul,  head  and  shoulders  above  his 
brethren,  and  seeing  that  he  ifl  humble,  may  learn  to 


8HAKSPEEE.  129 

leave  it  to  the  pismire  to  be  angry,  to  the  earwig  to  be 
conceited,  and  to  the  spider  to  insist  on  his  own  im- 
portance. 

But  to  return  to  the  main  course  of  our  observations. 
The  dramas  of  Shakspere  are  so  natural,  that  this,  the 
greatest  praise  that  can  be  given  them,  is  the  ground 
of  one  of  the  difficulties  felt  by  the  young  student  in 
estimating  them.  The  very  simplicity  of  Shakspere's 
art  seems  to  throw  him  out  of  any  known  groove  of 
judgment.  When  he  hears  one  say,  ''''Look  at  tliis, 
and  admire"  he  feels  inclined  to  rejoin,  "Why,  he 
only  says  in  the  simplest  way  what  the  thing  must 
have  been.  It  is  as  plain  as  daylight."  Yes,  to  the 
reader ;  and  because  Shakspere  wrote  it.  But  there 
were  a  thousand  wrong  ways  of  doing  it :  Shakspere 
took  the  one  right  way.  It  is  he  who  has  made  it 
plain  in  art,  whatever  it  was  before  in  nature;  and 
most  likely  the  very  simplicity  of  it  in  nature  was 
scarcely  observed  before  he  saw  it  and  represented  it. 
And  is  it  not  the  glory  of  art  to  attain  this  simplicity? 
for  simplicity  is  the  end  of  all  things — all  manners,  all 
morals,  ail  religion.  To  say  that  the  thing  could  not 
have  been  done  otherwise,  is  just  to  say  that  you  forget 
the  art  in  beholding  its  object,  that  you  forget  the 
mirror  because  you  see  nature  reflected  in  the  mirror. 
Any  one  can  see  the  moon  in  Lord  Rosse's  telescope  ; 
but  who  made  the  reflector  1  And  let  the  student  try 
to  express  anything  in  prose  or  in  verse,  in  painting  or 
in  modelling,  just  as  it  is.  No  man  knows  tiU  he  has 
made  many  attempts,  how  hard  to  reach  is  this  sim- 
plicity of  art.     And  the  greater  the  success,  the  fewer 

X 


130  SHAKSPEEE. 

are  the  signs  of  the  labour  expended.     Simplicity  ifl 

art's  perfection. 

But  so  natural  are  all  his  plays,  and  the  great 
tragedies  to  which  we  would  now  refer  in  particular, 
amongst  the  rest,  that  it  may  appear  to  some,  at  first 
sight,  that  Shakspere  could  not  have  constructed  them 
alter  any  moral  plan,  could  have  had  no  lesson  of  his 
own  to  teach  in  them,  seeing  they  bear  no  marks  of 
individual  intent,  in  that  they  depart  nowhere  from 
nature,  the  construction  of  the  play  itself  going  straight 
on  like  a  history.  The  directness  of  his  plays  springs 
in  [)art  from  the  fact  that  it  is  humanity  and  not  cir- 
cumstance that  Shakspere  respects.  Circumstance  he 
uses  only  for  the  setting  forth  of  humanity ;  and  for 
the  })lot  of  circumstance,  so  much  in  favour  with  Ben 
Joiison,  and  others  of  his  contemporaries,  he  cares 
nothing  As  to  their  looking  too  natural  to  have  any 
design  in  them,  we  are  not  of  those  who  believe  that 
it  is  unlike  natnie  to  have  a  design  and  a  result.  If 
the  proof  of  a  high  aim  is  to  be  what  the  critics  used 
to  call  j)oetic  justice,  a  kind  of  justice  that  one  would 
gladly  find  more  of  in  grocers'  and  linen-drapers'  shops, 
but  can  as  well  spare  from  a  poem,  then  we  must  say. 
that  he  has  not  always  a  high  end :  the  wicked  man  is 
not  tortured,  nor  is  the  gOod  man  smothered  in  bank- 
notes and  rose-leaves.  Even  when  he  shows  the  out- 
ward ruin  and  death  that  comes  upon  Macbeth  at  last, 
it  is  only  as  an  unavoidable  little  consequence,  follow- 
ing in  the  wake  of  the  mighty  vengeance  of  nature, 
even  of  God,  that  Macbeth  cannot  say  Amen;  that 
Macbeth  can  sleep  no  more;  that  Macbeth  is  "cabined 


SHAKSPEKE. 


131 


cribbed,  confined,  bound  in  to  saucy  doubts  and  fears ;" 
that  his  very  brain  is  a  charnel-house,  whence  arise 
the  ghosts  of  his  own  murders,  till  he  envies  the  very 
dead  the  rest  to  which  his  hand  has  sent  thenu  That 
immediate  and  eternal  vengeance  upon  crime,  and  that 
inner  reward  of  well-doing,  never  fail  in  nature  or  in 
Shakspere,  appear  as  such  a  matter  of  course  that  they 
hardly  look  like  design  either  in  nature  or  in  the  mirror 
which  he  holds  up  to  her.  The  secret  is  that,  in  the 
ideal,  habit  and  design  are  one. 

Most  authors  seem  anxious  to  round  off  and  finish 
everything  in  full  sight.  Most  of  Shakspere's  tragedies 
compel  our  thoughts  to  follow  their  persons  across  the 
bourn.  They  need,  as  Jean  Paul  says,  a  piece  of  the 
next  world  painted  in  to  complete  the  picture,  And 
this  is  surely  nature  :  but  it  need  not  therefore  be  no 
design.  What  could  be  done  with  Hamlet,  but  send 
him  into  a  region  where  he  has  some  chance  of  finding 
his  difficulties  solved ;  where  he  will  know  that  his 
reverence  for  God,  which  was  the  sole  stay  left  him  in 
the  flood  of  human  worthlessness,  has  not  been  in  vain ; 
that  the  skies  are  not  "  a  foul  and  pestilent  congrega- 
tion of  vapours  ;"  that  there  are  noble  women,  though 
his  mother  was  false  and  Ophelia  weak  ;  and  that  there 
are  noble  men,  although  his  uncle  and  Laertes  were 
villains  and  his  old  companions  traitors  1  If  Hamlet 
is  not  to  die,  the  whole  of  the  play  must  perish  under 
the  accusation  that  the  hero  of  it  is  left  at  last  with 
only  a  superadded  misery,  a  fresh  demand  for  action, 
namely,  to  rule  a  worthless  people,  as  they  seem  to 
him,  when  action  has  for  him  become  impossible  ;  that 


^l'!!^ 


[(  t;kivei!8Ity  V 


132  RIIAKSPERE. 

he  has  to  live  on,  forsaken  even  of  death,  which  will 
not  come  though  the  cup  of  misery  is  at  the  brim. 

But  a  high  end  may  be  gained  in  this  world,  and 
the  vision  into  the  world  beyond  so  justified,  as  in 
King  Lear.  The  passionate,  impulsive,  unreasoning 
old  king  certainly  must  have  given  his  wicked 
daughters  occasion  enough  of  making  the  charges  to 
which  their  avarice  urged  them.  He  had  learned  veiy 
little  by  his  life  of  kingship.  He  was  but  a  boy  witii 
grey  hair.  He  had  had  no  inner  experiences.  And 
so  all  the  development  of  manhood  and  age  has  to  be 
crowded  into  the  few  remaining  weeks  of  his  life.  His 
own  folly  and  blindness  supply  tlie  occasion.  Ami 
before  the  few  weeks  are  gone,  he  has  passed  through 
all  the  stages  of  a  fever  of  indignation  and  wrath, 
ending  in  a  madness  from  which  love  redeems  him ; 
he  has  learned  that  a  king  is  nothing  if  the  man  is 
nothing ;  that  a  king  ought  to  care  for  those  who 
cannot  help  themselves;  that  love  has  not  its  origin 
or  grounds  in  favours  flowing  from  royal  resource  and 
munificence,  and  yet  that  love  is  the  one  thing  woi  tli 
living  for,  which  gained,  it  is  time  to  die.  And  now 
that  he  has  the  experience  that  life  can  give,  has 
become  a  child  in  simplicity  of  heart  and  judgment, 
he  cannot  lose  his  daughter  again  ;  who,  likewise,  has 
learned  the  one  thing  she  needed,  as  far  as  her  father 
was  concerned,  a  little  more  excusing  tenderness  In 
the  same  play  it  cannot  be  by  chance  that  at  its  cotu- 
mencement  G-loucester  speaks  with  the  utmost  careless- 
ness and  oj^'hand  wit  about  the  parentage  of  his  natural 
son  Edmund,  but  finds  at  last  that  this  son  is  his  rum. 


SHAKSPEEE.  188 

Edgar,  the  true  son,  says  to  Edmund,  after  having 
righteously  dealt  him  his  death- wound,— 

**  The  gods  are  just,  and  of  our  pleasant  vices 
Make  instruments  to  scourge  us : 
The  dark  and  vicious  place  where  thee  ho  got 
Cost  him  his  eyes." 

To  which  the  dying  and  convicted  villain  replies,— 

"  Thou  hast  spoken  right ;  *tia  true  l 
The  wheel  is  come  fall  circle  j  I  am  here.** 

Could  anything  he  put  more  plainly  than  the  moral 
lesson  in  this  1 

It  would  be  easy  to  produce  examples  of  fine  design 
from  his  comedies  as  well ;  as  for  instance,  from 
"  Much  Ado  about  Nothing  :"  the  two  who  are  made 
to  fall  in  love  with  each  other,  by  being  each  severally 
assured  of  possessing  the  love  of  the  other,  Beatrice 
and  Benedick,  are  shown  beforehand  to  have  a  strong 
inclination  towards  each  other,  manifested  in  their 
continual  squabbling  after  a  good-humoured  fashion ; 
but  not  all  this  is  sufficient  to  make  them  heartily  in 
love,  until  they  find  out  the  nobility  of  each  other's 
character  in  their  behaviour  about  the  calumniated 
Hero;  and  the  author  takes  care  they  shall  not  be 
married  without  a  previous  acquaintance  with  the  trick 
that  lias  been  played  upon  them.  Indeed  we  think 
the  remark,  that  Shakspere  never  leaves  any  of  his 
characters  the  same  at  the  end  of  a  play  as  he  took 
them  up  at  the  beginning,  will  be  found  to  be  true. 
They  are  better  or  worse,  wiser  or  more  kreteierftbly 


134  SIIAKSPERB. 

foolish.  The  historical  plays  would  illustrate  the 
remark  as  well  as  any. 

But  of  all  the  terrible  plays  we  are  inclined  to  think 
"  Timon "  the  most  terrible,  and  to  doubt  whether 
justice  has  been  done  to  the  finish  and  completeness 
of  it.  At  the  same  time  we  are  inclined  to  think  that 
it  was  printed  (first  in  the  first  folio,  1623,  seven  years 
after  Shakspere's  death)  from  a  copy,  corrected  by  the 
author,  but  not  written  fair,  and  containing  consequent 
mistakes.  The  same  account  might  belong  to  others 
of  the  plays,  but  more  evidently  perhaps  belongs  to 
the  "  Timon."  The  idea  of  making  the  generous 
spendthrift,  whose  old  idolaters  had  forsaken  him 
because  the  idol  had  no  more  to  give,  into  the  high- 
priest  of  the  Temple  of  Mammon,  dispensing  the  gold 
which  he  hated  and  despised,  that  it  might  be  a  curse 
to  the  race  which  he  had  learned  to  hate  and  despise 
as  wellj  and  the  way  in  which  Shakspere  discloses 
the  depths  of  Timon's  wound,  by  bringing  him  into 
comparison  with  one  who  hates  men  by  profession  and 
humour — are  as  powerful  as  anything  to  be  found  even 
in  Shakspere. 

We  are  very  willing  to  believe  that  '*  Julius  Caesar  " 
was  one  of  his  latest  plays  ;  for  certainly  it  is  the  play 
in  which  he  has  represented  a  hero  in  the  high  and 
true  sense.  Brutus  is  this  hero,  of  course ;  a  hero 
because  he  will  do  what  he  sees  to  be  right,  indepen- 
dently of  personal  feeling  or  personal  advantage.  ]^or 
does  his  attempt  fail  from  any  overweening  or  blind- 
ness, in  himself.  Had  he  known  that  the  various 
pigpen  thiowB  in  liis  waj,  were  the  concoctions  of 


SHAKSPEPE.  135 

Casmis,  he  would  not  have  made  the  mistake  of  sup 
posing  that  the  Komans  longed  for  freedom,  and  there- 
fore would  be  ready  to  defend  it.  As  it  was,  he 
attempted  to  liberate  a  people  which  did  not  feel  its 
slavery.  He  failed  for  others,  but  not  for  himself; 
for  his  truth  was  such  that  everybody  was  true  to  him. 
Unlike  Jaques  with  his  seven  acts  of  the  burlesque  of 
human  life,  Brutus  says  at  the  last, — 

"  Countrymen, 
My  heart  doth  joy,  that  yet,  in  all  my  life, 
I  found  no  man  but  he  was  true  to  me." 

Of  course  all  this  is  in  f*lutarch.  But  it  is  easy  to 
see  with  what  relish  Shakspere  takes  it  up,  setting 
forth  all  the  aids  in  himself  and  in  others  which  Brutus 
had  to  being  a  hero,  and  thus  making  the  representation 
as  credible  a?  possible. 

We  must  heartily  confess  that  no  amount  of  genius 
alone  will  make  a  man  a  good  man  ;  that  genius  only 
shows  the  right  way — drives  no  man  to  walk  in  it. 
But  there  is  surely  some  moral  scent  in  us  to  let  us 
know  whether  a  man  only  cares  for  good  from  an 
artistic  point  of  view,  or  whether  he  admires  and  loves 
good.  This  admiration  and  love  cannot  be  prominently 
set  forth  by  any  dramatist  true  to  his  art ;  but  it  must 
come  out  over  the  whole.  His  predilections  must  show 
themselves  in  the  scope  of  his  artistic  life,  in  the  things 
and  subjects  he  chooses,  and  the  way  in  which  he 
represents  them.  Notwithstanding  Uncle  Toby  and 
Maria,  who  will  venture  to  say  that  Sterne  was  noble 
or  yirtuous,  when  ke  looks  over  the  whole  that  he  has 


136 


SHAKSPERE. 


written?  But  in  Shakspere  there  is  no  suspicion  of  a 
cloven  foot.  Everywhere  he  is  on  the  side  of  virtue 
and  of  truth.  Many  small  arguments,  with  great 
cumulative  force,  might  he  adduced  to  this  effect. 

For  ourselves  we  cannot  easily  helieve  that  the 
calmness  of  his  art  could  be  so  unvarying  except  he 
exercised  it  with  a  good  conscience ;  that  he .  could 
have  kept  looking  out  upon  the  world  around  him  with 
the  untroubled  regard  necessary  for  seeing  all  things  as 
they  are,  except  there  had  been  peace  in  his  house  at 
home ;  that  he  could  have  known  all  men  as  he  did, 
and  failed  to  know  himself.  We  can  understand  the 
co-existence  of  any  degree  of  partial  or  excited  genius 
with  evil  ways,  but  we  cannot  understand  the  existence 
of  such  calm  and  universal  genius,  wrought  out  in  his 
works,  except  in  association  with  all  that  is  noblest  in 
human  nature.  !N'or  is  it  other  than  on  the  side  of 
the  argument  for  his  rectitude  that  he  never  forces 
rectitude  upon  the  attention  of  others.  The  strong 
impression  left  upon  our  minds  is,  that  however  Shak- 
spere may  have  strayed  in  the  early  portion  of  his  life 
in  London,  he  was  not  only  an  upright  and  noble  man 
for  the  main  part,  but  a  repentant  man,  and  a  man 
whose  life  was  influenced  by  the  truths  of  Christianity. 

Much  is  now  said  about  a  memorial  to  Shakspere, 
The  best  and  only  true  memorial  is  no  doubt  that 
described  in  Milton's  poem  on  this  very  subject :  the 
living  and  ever- changing  monument  of  human  admira- 
tion, expressed  in  the  faces  and  forms  of  those  absorbed 
in  the  reading  of  his  works.  But  if  the  external 
monument  might  be  such  as  to  foster  the  constant 


SHAKSPEKB.  137 

reproduction  of  the  inward  montiment  of  love  and 
admiration,  then,  indeed,  it  might  be  well  to  raise 
one ;  and  with  this  object  in  view  let  ns  venture  to 
propose  one  mode  which  we  think  would  favour  the 
attainment  of  it. 

Let  a  Gothic  hall  of  the  fourteenth  century  be  built ; 
such  a  hall  as  would  be  more  in  the  imagination  of 
Shakspere  than  any  of  the  architecture  of  his  own  time. 
Let  aU  the  copies  that  can  be  procured  of  every  early 
edition  of  his  works,  singly  or  collectively,  be  stored 
in  this  haU.  Let  a  copy  of  every  other  edition  ever 
printed  be  procured  and  deposited.  Let  every  book 
or  treatise  that  can  be  found,  good,  bad,  or  indifferent, 
^vritten  about  Shakspere  or  any  of  his  works,  be  like- 
wise collected  for  the  Shakspere  library.  Let  a  special 
place  be  allotted  to  the  shameless  corruptions  of  his 
plays  that  have  been  produced  as  improvements  upon 
them,  some  of  which,  to  the  disgrace  of  England,  still 
partially  occupy  the  stage  instead  of  what  Shakspere 
wrote.  Let  one  department  contain  every  work  of 
whatever  sort  that  tends  to  direct  elucidation  of  his 
meaning,  chiefly  those  of  the  dramatic  writers  who 
preceded  him  and  closely  followed  him.  Let  the 
windows  be  filled  with  stained  glass,  representing  the 
popular  sports  of  his  own  time  and  the  times  of  his 
English  histories.  Let  a  small  museum  be  attached, 
containing  all  procurable  antiquities  that  are  referred 
to  in  his  plays,  along  with  first  editions,  if  possible,  of 
the  best  books  that  came  out  in  his  time,  and  were 
probably  rtad  by  him.  Let  the  whole  thus  as  much 
as  possible  represent  his  time.     Let  a  marbU  Btatue  in 


138  SHAKSPEEE. 

the  midst  do  the  best  that  English  art  can  accomplish 
for  the  representation  of  the  vanished  man ;  and  let 
copies,  if  not  the  originals,  of  the  several  portraits  be 
safely  shrined  for  the  occasional  beholding  of  the 
multitude.  Let  the  perpetuity  of  care  necessary  for 
this  monument  be  secured  by  endowment ;  and  let  it 
be  for  the  use  of  the  public,  by  means  of  a  reading- 
room  fitted  for  the  comfort  of  all  who  choose  to  avail 
themselves  of  these  facilities  for  a  true  acquaintance 
with  our  greatest  artist.  Let  there  likewise  bo  a 
simple  and  moderately-sized  theatre  attached,  not  for 
regular,  but  occasional  use;  to  be  employed  for  the 
representation  of  Shakspere's  plays  only,  and  allowed 
free  of  expense  for  amateur  or  other  representations  of 
them  for  charitable  purposes.  But  within  a  certain 
cycle  of  years — if,  indeed,  it  would  be  too  much  to 
expect  that  out  of  the  London  play-goers  a  sufficient 
number  would  be  found  to  justify  the  representation 
of  all  the  plays  of  Shakspere  once  in  the  season — let 
the  whole  of  Shakspere's  plays  be  acted  in  the  best 
manner  possible  to  the  managers  for  the  time  being. 

The  very  existence  of  such  a  theatre  would  be  a 
noble  protest  of  the  highest  kind  against  the  sort  of 
play,  chiefly  translated  and  adapted  from  the  Frencli, 
which  infests  our  boards,  the  low  tone  of  which,  even 
where  it  is  not  decidedly  immoral,  does  more  harm 
than  any  amount  of  the  rough,  honest  plain-spokenness 
of  Shakspere,  as  judged  by  our  more  fastidious,  if  not 
always  purer  manners.  The  representation  of  such 
plays  forms  the  real  ground  of  objection  to  theatre- 
going.     We  believe  that  other  objections,  which  may 


SHAKSPERE,  189 

be  equally  urged  against  large  assemblies  of  any  sort, 
are  not  really  grounded  upon  such  an  amount  of  objec- 
tionable fact  as  good  people  often  suppose.  At  all 
events  it  is  not  against  the  drama  itself,  but  its  con- 
comitants, its  avoidable  concomitants,  that  such  objec- 
tions are,  or-  ought  to  be,  felt  and  directed.  The 
dramatic  impulse,  as  well  as  all  other  impulses  of  our 
nature,  are  from  the  Maker. 

A  monument  hke  this  would  help  to  change  a  blind 
enthusiasm  and  a  dileitante-talk  into  knowledge,  reve- 
rence, and  study ;  and  surely  this  would  be  the  true 
way  to  honour  the  memory  of  the  man  who  appeals  to 
posterity  by  no  mighty  deeds  of  worldly  prowess,  but 
has  left  behind  him  food  for  heart,  brain,  and  con- 
science, on  which  the  generations  will  feed  till  the  end 
of  time.  It  would  be  the  one  true  and  natural  mode 
of  perpetuating  his  fame  in  kind  ;  helping  him  to  do 
more  of  that  for  which  he  was  bom,  and  because  of 
which  we  humbly  desire  to  do  him  honour,  as  the 
years  flow  farther  away  from  the  time  when,  at  the 
age  of  fifty-two,  he  left  the  world  a  richer  legacy  of  the 
results  of  intellectual  labour  than  any  other  labourer  in 
literature  has  ever  done.  It  would  be  to  raise  a  monu- 
ment to  his  mind  more  than  to  his  person. 

But  to  honour  Shakspere  in  the  best  way  we  must 
not  gaze  upon  some  grand  memorial  of  his  fame,  we 
must  not  talk  largely  of  his  wonderful  doings,  we  must 
not  even  behold  the  representation  of  his  works  on  the 
stage,  invaluable  aid  as  that  is  to  the  right  understand- 
ing of  what  he  has  written ;  but  we  must,  by  close, 
silent,  patient  study,  enter  into  an  understanding  with 


1^^  SHAKSPEEE. 

the  spirit  of  the  departed  poet-sage,  and  thus  let  his 
own  words  be  the  necromantic  spell  that  raises  the 
dead,  and  brings  us  into  communion  with  that  man 
who  knew  what  was  in  men  more  than  any  other  mere 
man  ever  did.  Well  was  it  for  Shakspere  that  he  was 
humble ;  else  on  what  a  desolate  pinnacle  of  com- 
panionless  solitude  must  he  have  stood  !  Where  avhs 
he  to  find  his  peers  ?  To  most  thoughtful  minds  it  is 
a  terrible  fancy  to  suppose  that  there  were  no  greater 
human  being  than  themselves.  From  the  terror  of 
such  a  truth  Shakspere's  love  for  men  preserved  him. 
He  did  not  think  about  himself  so  much  as  he  thought 
about  them.  Had  he  been  a  self-student  alone,  or 
chiefly,  could  he  ever  have  written  those  dramas? 
We  close  with  the  repetition  of  this  truth :  that  tlie 
love  of  our  kind  is  the  one  key  to  the  knowledge  of 
humanity  and  of  ourselves.  And  have  we  not  sacred 
authority  for  concluding  that  he  who  loves  his  brother 
is  the  more  able  and  the  more  likely  to  love  Him  who 
made  him  and  his  brother  also,  and  then  told  them 
that  love  is  the  fulfilling  of  the  law  % 


THE    ART    OF    SHAKSPERE,    AS    RE- 
VEALED BY  HIMSELF. 

Who  taught  you  this  P 
I  learn'd  it  out  of  women's  &ces. 

Winter's  Tale,  Act  ii.  scene  L 

XE  occasionally  hears  the  remark,  that  the 
commentators  upon  Shakspere  find  far 
more  in  Shakspere  than  Shakspere  ever 
intended  to  express.  Taking  this  asser- 
tion as  it  stands,  it  may  he  freely  granted,  not  only  of 
Shakspere,  but  of  every  writer  of  genius.  But  if  it  be 
intended  by  it,  that  nothing  can  exist  in  any  work  of 
art  beyond  what  the  writer  was  conscious  of  while  ill 
the  act  of  producing  it,  so  much  of  its  scope  is  false. 

No  artist  can  have  such  a  claim  to  the  high  title  of 
creator,  as  that  he  invents  for  himself  the  forms,  by 
means  of  which  he  produces  his  new  result ;  and  all  the 
forms  of  man  and  nature  which  he  modifies  and  com- 
bines 'to  make  a  new  region  in  his  world  of  art,  have 
their  own  original  life  and  meaning.  The  laws  likewise  of 
their  various  combinations  are  natural  laws,  harmonious 
with  each  other.  While,  therefore,  the  artist  employs 
many  or  few  of  their  original  aspects  for  his  immediate 
purpose,  he  does  not  and  cannot  thereby  deprive  them 
of  the  many  more  which  are  essential  to  their  yitality, 
»  1863. 


142  SHAKSPERE  S    ART. 

and  the  vitality  likewise  of  his  presentation  of  them, 
although  they  form  only  the  background  from  which 
his  peculiar  use  of  them  stands  out.  The  objects  pre- 
sented must  therefore  fall,  to  the  eye  of  the  observant 
reader,  into  many  different  combinations  and  harmonies 
of  operation  and  result,  which  are  indubitably  there, 
whether  the  writer  saw  them  or  not.  These  latent 
combinations  and  relations  will  be  numerous  and  true, 
in  proportion  to  the  scope  and  the  truth  of  the  repre-  ■ 
sentation ;  and  the  greater  the  number  of  meanings, 
harmonious  with  each  other,  which  any  work  of  art 
presents,  the  greater  claim  it  has  to  be  considered  a 
work  of  genius.  It  must,  therefore,  be  granted,  and 
that  joyfully,  that  there  may  be  meanings  in  Shak- 
spere's  writings  which  Shakspere  himself  did  not  see, 
and  to  which  therefore  his  art,  as  art,  does  not  point. 

But  the  probability,  notwithstanding,  must  surely  be 
allowed  as  well,  that,  in  great  artists,  the  amount  of 
conscious  art  will  bear  some  proportion  to  the  amount  of 
unconscious  truth :  the  visible  volcanic  light  will  bear 
a  true  relation  to  the  hidden  fire  of  the  globe  ;  so  that 
it  will  not  seem  likely  that,  in  such  a  writer  as  Shak- 
spere, we  should  find  many  indications  of  present  and 
operative  art^  of  which  he  was  himself  unaware.  Some 
truths  may  be  revealed  through  him,  which  he  himself 
knew  only  potentially ;  but  it  is  not  likely  that  marks 
of  work,  bearing  upon  the  results  of  tlie  play,  should 
be  fortuitous,  or  that  the  work  thus  indicated  should 
be  unconscious  work.  A  stroke  of  the  mallet  may  be 
more  effective  than  the  sculptor  had  hoped ;  but  it  was 
intended.    In  the  diama  it  is  easier  to  discover  indivi- 


143 

dual  marks  of  the  chisel,  than  in  the  marble  whence 
all  signs  of  such  are  removed  :  in  the  drama  the  lines 
themselves  fall  into  the  general  finish,  without  neces- 
sary obliteration  as  lines.  Still,  the  reader  cannot  help 
being  fearful,  lest,  not  as  regards  truth  only,  but  as 
regards  art  as  well,  he  be  sometimes  clothing  the  idol 
of  his  intellect  with  the  weavings  of  his  fancy.  My 
conviction  is,  that  it  is  the  very  consummateness  of 
Shakspere's  art,  that  exposes  his.  work  to  the  doubt 
that  springs  from  loving  anxiety  for  his  honour ;  the 
dramatist,  like  the  sculptor,  avoiding  every  avoidable  hint 
of  the  process,  in  order  to  render  the  result  a  vital  whole. 
But,  fortunately,  we  are  not  left  to  argue  entirely  from 
probabilities.  He  has  himself  given  us  a  peep  into  his 
studio — let  me  call  it  workshop,  as  more  comprehensive. 
It  is  not,  of  course,  in  the  shape  of  literary  criticism, 
that  we  should  expect  to  meet  such  a  revelation ;  for 
to  use  art  even  consciously,  and  to  regard  it  as  an  object 
of  contemplation,  or  to  theorize  about  it,  are  two  very 
different  mental  operations.  The  productive  and 
critical  faculties  are  rarely  found  in  equal  combination  ; 
and  even  where  they  are,  they  cannot  operate  equally 
in  regard  to  the  same  object.  There  is  a  perfect 
satisfaction  in  producing,  which  does  not  demand  a 
re- presentation  to  the  critical  faculty.  In  other  words, 
the  criticism  which  a  great  writer  brings  to  bear  upon 
his  own  work,  is  from  within,  regarding  it  upon  the 
liidden  side,  namely,  in  relation  to  his  OAvn  idea; 
whereas  criticism,  commonly  understood,  has  reference 
to  the  side  turned  to  the  public  gaze.  Neither  could 
we  expect  one  so  prolific  as  Shakspere  to  find  time  for 


144  shakspere's  art. 

the  criticism  of  the  works  of  other  men,  except  in  such 
moments  of  relaxation  as  those  in  which  the  friends  at 
the  Mermaid  Tavern  sat  silent  beneath  the  flow  of  his 
wisdom  and  humour,  or  made  the  street  ring  with  the 
overflow  of  their  own  enjoyment. 

But  if  the  artist  proceed  to  speculate  upon  the  nature 
or  productions  of  another  art  than  his  own,  we  may 
then  expect  the  principles  upon  which  he  operates  in 
his  own,  to  take  outward  and  visible  form — a  form 
modified  by  the  difference  of  the  art  to  which  he  now 
applies  them.  In  one  of  Shakspere's  poems,  we  have 
the  description  of  an  imagined  production  of  a  sister-art 
— that  of  Painting — a  description  so  brilliant  that  the 
light  reflected  from  the  poet-picture  illumines  the  art  of 
the  Poet  himself,  revealing  the  principles  which  he 
held  with  regard  to  representative  art  generally,  and 
suggesting  many  thoughts  with  regard  to  detail  and 
harmony,  finish,  pregnancy,  and  scope.  This  descrip- 
tion is  found  in  "  The  Rape  of  Lucrece."  Apology  will 
hardly  be  necessary  for  making  a  long  quotation,  seeing 
that,  besides  the  convenience  it  will  afford  of  easy  refer- 
ence to  the  ground  of  my  argument,  one  of  the  greatest 
helps  which  even  the  artist  can  give  to  us,  is  to  isolate 
peculiar  beauties,  and  so  compel  us  to  perceive  them. 

Lucrece  has  sent  a  messenger  to  beg  the  immediate 
presence  of  her  husband.  Awaiting  his  return,  and 
worn  out  with  weeping,  she  looks  about  for  some  varia- 
tion of  her  misery. 

1. 

At  last  she  oalla  to  mind  where  hangs  a  pieoe 
Of  ikilfiil  painting,  made  for  Priam's  Troy  | 


shakspere's  aet.  145 

Befoi-e  the  which  is  drawn  the  power  of  Greece^ 
For  Helen's  rape  the  city  to  destroy. 
Threatening  cloud -kissing  Ilion  with  annoy  | 
Which  the  conceited  painter  drew  so  proud,* 
As  heaven,  it  seemed,  to  kiss  the  turrets,  bowed. 

2. 
A  thousand  lamentable  objects  there, 

In  scorn  of  Nature,  Art  gave  lifeless  lifet 
Many  a  dry  drop  seemed  a  weeping  tear, 

Shed  for  the  slaughtered  husband  by  the  wife ; 

The  red  blood  reeked,  to  show  the  painter's  strife. 
And  dying  eyes  gleamed  forth  their. ashy  lights. 
Like  dying  coals  burnt  out  in  tedious  nights. 

3. 

There  might  you  see  the  labouring  pioneer 

Begrimed  with  sweat,  and  smeared  all  with  dust  | 

And,  from  the  towers  of  Troy  there  would  appear 
The  very  eyes  of  men  through  loopholes  thrust, 
Gazing  upon  the  Greeks  with  little  lust : 

Such  sweet  observance  in  this  work  was  had, 

That  one  might  see  those  far-off  eyes  look  sad. 

4. 

In  great  commanders,  grace  and  majesty 

You  might  behold,  triumphing  in  their  faoeS| 

In  youth,  quick  bearing  and  dexterity  ; 
And  here  and  there  the  painter  interlaces 
Pale  cowards,  marching  on  with  trembling  paces, 

Which  heartless  peasants  did  so  well  resemble. 

That  one  would  swear  he  saw  them  quake  and  tremble. 

5. 

In  Ajax  and  Ulysses,  0  what  art 
Of  physiognomy  might  one  behold  I 

The  face  of  either  ciphered  either*s  heart } 

Their  face  their  manners  most  expressly  tolds 
In  Ajax*  eyes  blunt  rage  and  rigour  rolled  j 

But  the  mild  glance  that  sly  Ulysses  lent 

Showed  deep  regard,  and  smiling  government. 

& 


146  shakspere's  art. 

There  pleading  might  you  see  grave  Nestor  standi 
As  'twere  encouraging  the  Greeks  to  fight ; 

Making  such  Sober  action  with  his  hand, 

That  it  beguiled  attention,  charmed  the  sight ; 
In  speech,  it  seemed  his  beard,  all  silver- white, 

Wagged  up  and  down,  and  from  his  lips  did  fly 

Thin  winding  breath,  which  purled  up  to  the  slqr. 

7. 

About  him  were  a  press  of  gaping  faces, 

Which  seemed  to  swallow  up  his  sound  advice  f 

All  jointly  listening,  but  with  several  graces, 
As  if  some  mermaid  did  their  ears  entice  j 
Some  high,  some  low,  the  painter  was  so  nioo. 

The  scalps  of  many,  almost  hid  behind, 

To  jump  up  higher  seemed,  to  mock  the  mind. 

8. 
Here  one  man's  hand  leaned  on  another's  head, 

His  nose  being  shadowed  by  his  neighbour's  ear  | 
Here  one,  being  thronged,  bears  back,  all  boUen  and  l6Cl| 

Another,  smothered,  seems  to  pelt  and  swear  ; 

And  in  their  rage  such  signs  of  rage  they  bear, 
As,  but  for  loss  of  Nestor's  golden  words. 
It  seemed  they  would  debate  with  angry  swords. 

9. 

For  mnch  imaginary  work  was  there  ; 
Conceit  deceitful,  so  compact,  so  kind, 

That  tor  Achilles'  image  stood  his  spear, 
Ci  r  iped  in  an  armed  hand  ;  himself  behind 
Was  left  unseen,  save  to  the  eye  of  mind  t 

A  hand,  a  foot,  a  face,  a  leg,  a  head. 

Stood  for  the  whole  to  be  imagined. 

10. 

And,  from  the  walla  of  strong-besieged  Troy, 
When  their  brave  hope^  bold  Hector,  marched  to  tUUif 


147 


Stood  many  Trojan  mothers,  sharing  joy- 
To  see  their  youthful  sons  bright  weapons  wield. 
And  to  their  hope  they  such  odd  action  yield ; 
That  through  their  light  joy  seemed  to  appear, 
Like  brigl:^  things  stained,  a  kind  of  heavy  fear. 

11. 

And  from  the  strond  of  Dardan,  where  they  fongbty 
•  To  Simois'  reedy  banks,  the  red  blood  ran ; 
Whose  waves  to  imitate  the  battle  sought. 

With  swelling  ridges ;  and  their  ranks  began 

To  break  upon  the  galled  sFiore,  and  then 
Retire  again,  till,  meeting  greater  ranks, 
They  join,  and  shoot  their  foam  at  Simois'  banks. 

The  oftener  I  read  these  verses,  amongst  the  very 
earliest  compositions  of  Shakspere,  I  am  the  more 
impressed  with  the  carefulness  with  which  he  repre- 
sents the  work  of  the  picture — "  shows  the  strife  of  the 
painter."  The  most  natural  thought  to  follow  in 
sequence  is  :  How  like  his  own  art ! 
f  The  scope  and  variety  of  the  whole  picture,  in  which 
mass  is  effected  by  the  accumulation  of  individuality ; 
in  which,  on  tlie  one  hand,  Troy  stands  as  the  imper- 
sonation of  the  aim  and  object  of  the  whole;  and  on 
the  other,  the  Simois  flows  in  foaming  rivalry  of  the 
strife  of  men, — tlie  pictorial  form  of  that  sympathy  of 
nature  with  human  effort  and  passion,  which  he  so 
often  introduces  in  his  plays, — is  like  nothing  else  so 
much  as  one  of  the  works  of  his  own  art.  But  to 
take  a  portion  as  a  more  condensed  representation  of 
his  art  in  combining  all  varieties  into  one  harmonious 
"whole  :  his  genius  is  like  the  oratory  of  ITestor  as 
described  by  its  effects  in  the  seventh  and  eighth  stanzas. 
L  2 


148  shakspere's  art. 

Every  variety  of  attitude  and  countenance  and  action 
is  harmonized  by  the  influence  which  is  at  once  the 
occasion  of  debate,  and  the  charm  which  restrains  by 
the  fear  of  its  own  loss :  the  eloquence  and  the  listen- 
ing form  the  one  bond  of  the  unruly  mass.  So  the 
dramatic  genius  that  harmonizes  his  play,  is  visible 
only  in  its  effects  ;  so  etherial  in  its  own  essence  that 
it  refuses  to  bo  submitted  to  the  analysis  of  the  ruder 
intellect,  it  is  like  the  words  of  Nestor,  for  which  in 
the  picture  there  stands  but  "  thin  winding  breath 
which  purled  up  to  the  sky."  Take,  for  an  instance  of 
this,  the  reconciling  power  by  which,  in  the  mysterious 
midnight  of  the  summer-wood,  he  brings  together  in 
one  harmony  the  graceful  passions  of  childish  elves, 
and  the  fierce  passions  of  men  and  women,  with  the 
ludicrous  reflection  of  those  passions  in  the  little  convex 
mirror  of  the  artisan's  drama ;  while  the  mischievous 
Puck  revels  in  things  that  fall  out  preposterously,  and 
the  Klt'-Queen  is  in  love  with  ass-headed  Bottom,  from 
the  hollows  of  whose  long  hairy  ears— strange  bouquet- 
holders — bloom  and  breathe  the  musk-roses,  the  charac- 
teristic odour- founts  of  the  play ;  and  the  philosophy 
of  the  unbelieving  Theseus,  with  the  candour  of 
Hippolyta,  lifts  the  whole  into  relation  with  the 
realities  of  human  life.  Or  take,  as  another  instance, 
the  pretended  madman  Edgar,  the  court-fool,  and  the 
rugged  old  king  going  grandly  mad,  sheltered  in  one 
hut,  and  lapped  in  the  roar  of  a  thunderstorm. 

My  object,  then,  in  respect  to  this  poem,  is  to  pro- 
duce, from  many  instances,  a  few  examples  of  the 
metamorphosis  of  such  excellences  as  he  describes  in 


SHAKSPERE  8    ART. 


149 


the  picture,  into  the  corresponding  forms  of  the  drama; 
in  the  hope  that  it  will  not  then  be  necessary  to  urge 
the  probability  that  the  presence  of  those  artistic 
virtues  in  his  own  practice,  upon  which  he  expatiates 
in  his  representation  of  another  man's  art,  were  accom- 
panied by  the  corresponding  consciousness — that, 
namely,  of  the  artist  as  differing  from  that  of  the  critic, 
its  objects  being  regarded  from  the  concave  side  of  the 
hammered  relief.  If  this  probability  be  granted,  I 
would,  from  it,  advance  to  a  higher  and  far  more  im- 
portant conclusion — how  unlikely  it  is  that  if  the  writer 
was  conscious  of  such  fitnesses,  he  should  be  uncon- 
scious of  those  grand  embodiments  of  truth,  which  are 
indubitably  present  in  his  plays,  whether  he  knew  it 
or  not.  This  portion  of  my  argument  will  be  strength- 
ened by  an  instance  to  show  that  Shakspere  was 
himself  quite  at  home  in  the  contemplation  of  such 
truths. 

Let  me  adduce,  then,  some  of  those  corresponding 
embodiments  in  words  instead  of  in  forms ;  in  which 
colours  yield  to  tones,  lines  to  phrases.  I  will  begin 
with  the  lowest  kind,  in  which  the  art  has  to  do  with 
matters  so  small,  that  it  is  difficult  to  believe  that 
unconscious  art  could  have  any  relation  to  them.  They 
can  hardly  have  proceeded  directly  from  the  great 
inspiration  of  the  whole.  Thei^^  very  minuteness  is  an 
argument  for  their  presence  to  th'3  poet's  consciousness  ; 
while  belonging,  as  they  do,  only  to  the  construction  of 
the  play,  no  such  independent  existence  can  be  accorded 
to  them,  as  to  truths^  which,  being  in  themselves 
realities,  are  there,  whether  Shakspere  saw  them  or 


150  shakspere's  art. 

not.  If  he  did  not  intend  them,  the  most  that  can 
be  said  for  them  is,  that  such  is  the  naturalness  of 
Shakspere's  representations,  that  there  is  room  in  his 
plays,  as  in  life,  for  those  wonderful  coincidences 
which  are  reducible  to  no  law. 

Perhaps  every  one  of  the  examples  I  adduce  will  be 
found  open  to  dispute.  This  is  a  kind  in  which  direct 
proof  can  have  no  share  ;  nor  should  I  have  dared 
thus  to  combine  them  in  argument,  but  for  the  ninth 
stanza  of  those  quoted  above,  to  which  I  beg  my  readers 
to  revert.  Its  imaginary  work  means — work  hinted 
at,  and  then  left  to  the  imagination  of  the  reader.  Of 
course,  in  dramatic  representation,  such  work  must 
exist  on  a  great  scale  ;  but  the  minute  particularization 
of  the  "  conceit  deceitful "  in  the  rest  of  the  stanza, 
will  surdy  justify  us  in  thinking  it  possible  that 
Shakspere  intended  'many,  if  not  all,  of  the  little 
fitnesses  which  a  careful  reader  discovers  in  his  plays. 
That  such  are  not  oftener  discovered  comes  from  this : 
that,  like  life  itself,  he  so  blends  into  vital  beauty,  that 
there  are  no  salient  points.  To  use  a  homely  simile  : 
he  is  nut  like  the  barn-door  fowl,  that  always  runs  out 
cackling  when  she  has  laid  an  ^gg  \  and  often  when 
she  has  not.  In  the  tone  of  an  ordinary  drama,  you 
may  know  when  something  is  coming ;  and  the  tone 
itself  declares — /  liave  done  it.  But  Shakspere  will 
not  spoil  his  art  to  show  his  art.  It  is  there,  and  does 
its  part :  that  is  enough.  If  you  can  discover  it,  good 
and  woU  ;  if  not,  pass  on,  and  take  what  you  can  find. 
He  can  afford  not  to  be  fathomed  for  every  little  pearl 
that  lies  at  the  bottom  of  his  ocean.     If  I  succeed  in 


shakspeee's  art.  151 

Bhowing  that  such  art  may  exist  where  it  is  not  readily- 
discovered,  this  may  give  some  additional  probability 
to  its  existence  in  places  where  it  is  harder  to  isolate 
and  define. 

To  produce  a  few  instances,  then : 

In  "  Much  Ado  about  Xothing,"  seeing  the  very  nature 
of  the  play  is  expressed  in  its  name,  is  it  not  likely  that 
Shakspere  named  the  two  constables,  Dogberry  (a 
poisonous  terry)  and  Yerjuice  (the  juice  of  crab-apples)', 
those  names  having  absolutely  nothing  to  do  with  the 
stupid  innocuousness  of  their  characters,  and  so  corre- 
sponding to  their  way  of  turning  things  upside  down, 
and  saying  the  very  opposite  of  what  they  mean  1 

In  the  same  play  we  find  Margaret  objecting  to  her 
mistress's  wearing  a  certain  rebato  (a  large  plaited  ruff), 
on  the  morning  of  her  wedding:  may  not  this  be 
intended  to  relate  to  the  fact  that  Margaret  had  dressed 
in  her  mistress's  clothes  the  night  before  ?  She  might 
have  rumpled  or  soiled  it,  and  so  feared  discovery. 

In  "King  Henry  IV.,"  Part  L,  we  find,  in  the 
last  scene,  that  the  Prince  kills  Hotspur.  This  is 
not  recorded  in  history  :  the  conqueror  of  Percy  is  un- 
known. Had  it  been  a  fact,  history  would  certainly 
have  recorded  it ;  and  the  silence  of  history  in  regard 
to  a  deed  of  such  mark,  is  equivalent  to  its  contradiction. 
But  Shakspere  requires,  for  his  play's  sake,  to  identify 
the  slayer  of  Hotspur  with  his  rival  the  Prince.  Yet 
Shakspere  will  not  contradict  history,  even  in  its  silence. 
What  is  he  to  do  ?  He  will  account  for  history  not 
knotoing  the  fact. — Falstaff  claiming  the  honour,  the 
Prince  says  to  him : 


152  shakspere's  art. 

"For  my  part,  if  a  lie  may  do  thee  grace, 
m  gild  it  with  the  happiest  terms  I  have  ;•* 

revealing  tlius  the  magnificence  of  his  own  character,  in 
his  readiness,  for  the  sake  of  his  friend,  to  part  with 
his  chief  renown.  But  the  Historic  Muse  could  not 
believe  that  fat  Jack  Falstaff  had  killed  Hotspur,  and 
therefore  she  would  not  record  the  claim. 

In  the  second  part  of  the  same  play,  act  i.  scene  2,  we 
find  Falstaff  toweringly  indignant  with  Mr.  Domhledon, 
the  silk  mercer,  that  he  will  stand  upon  security  with 
a  gentleman  for  a  short  cloak  and  slops  of  satin.  In 
the  first  scene  of  the  second  act,  the  hostess  mentions 
that  Sir  John  is  going  to  dine  with  Master  Smooth, 
the  silkman.  Foiled  with  Mr.  Domhledon,  he  has 
already  made  himself  so  agreeable  to  Master  Smooth, 
that  he  is  "indited  to  dinner"  with  him.  This  is, 
by  the  bye,  as  to  the  action  of  the  play ;  but  as  to 
the  character  of  Sir  John,  is  it  not 

"  Conceit  deceitful,  so  compact,  so  kind" — Mnned — natwalf 

The  conceit  deceitful  in  the  painting,  is  the  imagina- 
tion that  means  more  than  its  says.  So  the  words 
of  the  speakers  in  the  play,  stand  for  more  than  the 
speakers  mean.  They  are  Shakspere*s  in  their  rela- 
tion to  his  whole.  To  Achilles,  his  spear  is  but  his 
«pear :  to  the  painter  and  his  company,  the  spear  of 
Achilles  stands  for  Achilles  himself. 

Coleridge  remarks  upon  James  Gumey,  in  "King 
John :"  "  How  individual  and  comical  he  is  with  the 
four  words  allowed  to  his  dramatic  life  !  "  These  words 
are  those  with  which  he  answers  the  Bastard's  request 


shakspeee's  aet.  153 

to  leave  the  room.  He  has  heen  lingering  with  all  the 
inquisitiveness  and  privilege  of  an  old  servant ;  when 
Faulconbridge  says :  "  James  Gurney,  wilt  thou  give 
us  leave  a  while  1 "  with  strained  politeness.  AYith 
marked  condescension  to  the  request  of  the  second  son, 
whom  he  has  known  and  served  from  infancy,  James 
Gurney  replies :  "  Good  leave,  good  Philip ;"  giving 
occasion  to  Faulconbridge  to  show  his  ambition,  and 
scorn  of  his  present  standing,  in  the  contempt  with 
which  he  treats  even  the  Christian  name  he  is  so  soon 
to  exchange  with  his  surname  for  Sir  Bichard  and 
Plantagenet ;  Fliilip  being  the  name  for  a  sparrow  in 
those  days,  when  ladies  made  pets  of  them.  Surely  in 
these  words  of  the  serving-man,  we  have  an  outcome 
of  the  same  art  by  which 

"  A  hand,  a  foot,  a  face,  a  leg,  a  head, 
Stood  for  the  whole  to  be  imagined." 

In  the  "Winter's  Tale,*'  act  iv.  scene  3,  Perdita, 
dressed  with  unwonted  gaiety  at  the  festival  of  the 
sheep-shearing,  is  astonished  at  finding  herself  talking 
in  full  strains  of  poetic  verse.     She  says,  half-ashamed : 

*•  Methinks  I  play  as  I  have  seen  them  do 
In  Whitsun  pastorals :  sure,  this  robe  of  mine 
Does  change  my  disposition  1 " 

She  does  not  mean  this  seriously.  But  the  robe  has 
more  to  do  with  it  than  she  thinks.  Her  passion  for 
Plorizel  is  the  warmth  that  sets  the  springs  of  her 
thoughts  free,  and  they  flow  with  the  grace  belonging 
to  a  princess-nature ;  but  it  is  the  robe  that  opens  the 


154 

door  of  her  speech,  and,  by  elevating  her  conscious- 
ness of  herself,  betrays  her  into  what  is  only  natural 
to  her,  but  seems  to  her,  on  reflection,  inconsistent 
with  her  low  birth  and  poor  education.  This  instance, 
however,  involves  far  higher  elements  than  any  of  the 
examples  I  have  given, before,  and  naturally  leads  to  a 
much  more  important  class  of  illustrations. 

In  "  Macbeth,"  act  ii.  scene  4,  why  is  the  old  man,  who 
has  nothing  to  do  with  the  conduct  of  the  play,  intro- 
duced? -That,  in  conversation  with  Rosse,  he  may,  as 
an  old  man,  bear  testimony  to  the  exceptionally  terrific 
nature  of  that  storm,  which,  we  find — from  the  words 
of  Banquo  : 

"  There's  husbandry  in  heaven  • 
Their  candles  are  all  out," — 

had  begun  to  gather,  before  supper  was  over  in  the 
castle.  This  storm  is  the  sympathetic  horror  of  Nature 
at  the  breaking  open  of  the  Lord's  anointed  temple — 
a  horror  in  which  the  animal  creation  partakes,  for 
the  horses  of  Duncan,  "  the  minions  of  their  race,"  and 
therefore  the  most  sensitive  of  their  sensitive  race,  tear 
each  other  to  pieces  in  the  wildness  of  their  horror. 
Consider  along  with  this  a  foregoing  portion  of  the 
second  scene  in  the  same  act.  Macbeth,  having  joined 
his  wife  after  the  murder,  says  : 

"  Who  lies  i*  the  second  chamber  P 
Lad/y  M,  Donalbain. 


There  are  two  lodged  together.** 
These  two,  Macbeth  says,  woke  each  other — the  one 


shakspere's  art.  155 

laughing,  the  other  crying  murder.  Then  they  said 
their  prayers  and  went  to  sleep  again. — I  used  to  think 
that  the  natural  companion  of  Donalbain  would  be 
Malcolm,  his  brother  ;  and  that  the  two  brothers  woke 
in  horror  from  the  proximity  of  their  father's  murderer 
who  was  just  passing  the  door.  A  friend  objected  to 
this,  that,  had  they  been  together,  Malcolm,  being  the 
elder,  would  have  been  mentioned  rather  than  Donal- 
bain. Accept  this  objection,  and  we  find  a  yet  more 
delicate  significance  ;  the  pi'esence  operated  differently 
on  the  two,  one  bursting  out  in  a  laugh,  the  other 
crying  murder ',  but  both  were  in  terror  when  they 
awoke,  and  dared  not  sleep  till  they  had  said  their 
prayers.  His  sons,  his  horses,  the  elements  themselves, 
are  shaken  by  one  unconscious  sympathy  with  the 
murdered  king. 

Associate  with  this  the  end  of  the  third  scene  of 
the  fourth  act  of  "  Julius  Caesar  f  where  we  find  that 
the  attendants  of  Brutus  all  cry  out  in  their  sleep,  as 
the  ghost  of  Caesar  leaves  their  master's  tent.  This 
outcry  is  not  given  in  Plutarch. 

To  return  to  "  Macbeth : "  Why  is  the  doctor  of 
medicine  introduced  in  the  scene  at  the  English 
court  ?  He  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  progress  of  the 
play  itself,  any  more  than  the  old  man  already  alluded 
to. — He  is  introduced  for  a  precisely  similar  reason. — 
As  a  doctor,  he  is  the  best  testimony  that  could  be 
adduced  to  the  fact,  that  the  English  King  Edward 
the  Confessor,  is  a  fountain  of  health  to  his  people, 
gifted  for  his  goodness  with  the  sacred  privilege  of 
curing  The  King's  UvU,  by  the  touch  of  his  holy  handa 


156  shakspebe's  art. 

The  English  King  himself  is  thus  introduced,  for  the 
sake  of  contrast  with  the  Scotch  King,  who  is  a  raging 
bear  amongst  his  subjects. 

In  the  "  Winter's  Tale,"  to  which  he  gives  the  name 
because  of  the  altogether  extraordinary  character  of  the 
occurrences  (referring  to  it  in  the  play  itself,  in  the 
words  :  "a  sad  tale's  best  for  winter:  I  have  one  of 
sprites  and  goblins,'')  Antigonus  has  a  remarkable  dream 
or  vision,  in  which  Hermione  appears  to  him,  and  com- 
mands the  exposure  of  her  child  in  a  place  to  all 
appearance  the  most  unsuitable  and  dangerous.  Con- 
vinced of  the  reality  of  the  vision,  Antigonus  obeys ; 
and  the  whole  marvellous  result  depends  upon  this 
obedience.  Therefore  the  vision  must  be  intended  for 
a  genuine  one.  But  how  could  it  be  such,  if  Hermione 
was  not  dead,  as,  from  her  appearance  to  him,  Anti- 
gonus firmly  believed  she  was  1  I  should  feel  this  to 
be  an  objection  to  the  art  of  the  play,  but  for  the 
following  answer  : — At  the  time  she  appeared  to  him, 
she  was  still  lying  in  that  deathlike  swoon,  into  which 
she  fell  when  the  news  of  the  loss  of  her  son  reached 
her  as  she  stood  before  the  judgment-seat  of  her  hus- 
band, at  a  time  when  she  ought  not  to  have  been  out 
of  her  chamber. 

Note  likewise,  in  the  first  scene  of  the  second  act  of 
the  same  play,  the  changefulness  of  Hermione's  mood 
with  regard  to  her  boy,  as  indicative  of  her  condition 
at  the  time.  If  we  do  not  regard  this  fact,  we  shall 
think  the  words  introduced  only  for  the  sake  of  filling 
up  the  business  of  the  play. 

In  "Twelfth    Night,"  both   ladies  make  the   first 


shakspere's  art.  157 

advances  in  love.  Is  it  not  worthy  of  notice  that  one 
of  them  has  lost  her  brother,  and  that  the  other  believes 
she  has  lost  hers  1  In  this  respect,  they  may  be  placed 
with  Phffibe,  in  "  As  You  Like  It,"  who,  having  sud- 
denly lost  her  love  by  the  discovery  that  its  object  was 
a  woman,  immediately  and  heartily  accepts  the  devotion 
of  her  rejected  lover,  Silvius.  Along  with  these  may 
be  classed  Romeo,  who,  rejected  and,  as  he  believes, 
inconsolable,  falls  in  love  with  Juliet  the  moment  he 
sees  her.  That  his  love  for  Eosaline,  however,  was 
but  a  kind  of  calf-love  compared  with  his  love  for 
Juliet,  may  be  found  indicated  in  the  differing  tones  of 
his  speech  under  the  differing  conditions.  Compare 
what  he  says  in  his  conversation  with  Benvolio,  in  the 
first  scene  of  the  first  act,  with  any  of  his  many 
speeches  afterwards,  and,  while  conceit  will  be  found 
prominent  enough  in  both,  the  one  will  be  found  to  be 
ruled  by  the  fancy,  the  other  by  the  imagination. 

In  this  same  play,  there  is  another  similar  point 
which  I  should  like  to  notice.  In  Arthur  Brook's 
story,  from  which  Shakspere  took  his,  there  is  no 
mention  of  any  communication  from  Lady  Capulet  to 
Juliet  of  their  intention  of  marrying  her  to  Count 
Paris.  Why  does  Shakspere  insert  this? — to  explain 
her  falling  in  love  with  Romeo  so  suddenly.  Her 
mother  has  set  her  mind  moving  in  that  direction. 
She  has  never  seen  Paris.  She  is  looking  about  her, 
wondering  which  may  be  he,  and  whether  she  shall  be 
able  to  like  him,  when  she  meets  the  love-fiUed  eyes  of 
Romeo  fixed  upon  her,  and  is  at  once  overcome. 

What  a  significant  speech  is  that  given  to  Paulina 


158  shakspere's  art. 

in  the  "  Winter's  Tale,"  act  v.  scene  1  :  "  How  ?  Not 
women?"  Paulina  is  a  thoroiigli  partisan,  siding  with 
women  against  men,  and  strengthened  in  this  by  the 
treatment  her  mistress  has  received  from  her  hus- 
band. One  has  just  said  to  her,  that,  if  Perdita  would 
begin  a  sect,  she  might  "make  proselytes  of  who  she 
bid  but  follow."  "How"?  Not  women?"  Paulina 
rejoins.  Having  received  assurance  that  "  women  will 
love  her,"  she  has  no  more  to  say. 

I  had  the  following  explanation  of  a  line  in  '*  Twelfth 
Nigl^t "  from  a  stranger  I  met  in  an  old  book-shop : — ■ 
Malvolio,  having  built  his  castle  in  the  air,  proceeds  to 
inhabit  it.  Describing  his  own  behaviour  in  a  supposed 
case,  he  says  (act  ii.  scene  5)  :  "I  frown  the  while  ;  and 
perchance,  wind  up  my  watch,  or  play  with  my  some 
rich  jeweL" — A  dash  ought  to  come  after  mij.  Mah'olio 
was  about  to  say  chain;  but  remembering  that  his 
chain  was  the  badge  of  his  office  of  steward,  and  there- 
fore of  his  servitude,  he  alters  the  word  to  "  some  ncli 
jewel"  uttered  with  pretended  carelessness. 

In  "  Hamlet,"  act  iii.  scene  1,  did  not  Shakspere  in- 
tend the  passionate  soliloquy  of  Ophelia — a  soliloquy 
which  no  maiden  knowing  that  she  was  overheard  would 
have  uttered, — coupled  with  the  words  of  her  father : 

"  How  now,  Ophelia  ? 
You  need  not  tell  us  what  lord  Hamlet  said, 
We  heard  it  all  ;"— 

to  indicate  that,  weak  as  Ophelia  was,  she  was  not  false 
enough  to  be  accomplice  in  any  plot  for  betraying 
Hamlet   to   her   father   and   the   King?     They   had 


shakspere's  art.  159 

remained  behind  the  arras,  and  had  not  gone  out  as  she 
must  have  supposed. 

Next,  let  me  request  my  reader  to  refer  once  more 
to  the  poem ;  and  having  considered  the  physiognomy 
of  Ajax  and  Ulysses,  as  described  in  the  fifth  stanza, 
to  turn  then  to  the  play  of  "  Troilus  and  Cressida," 
and  there  contemplate  that  description  as  metamor- 
phosed into  the  higher  form  of  revelation  in  speech. 
Then,  if  he  will  associate  the  general  principles  in  that 
stanza  with  the  third,  especially  the  last  two  lines,  I 
will  apply  this  to  the  character  of  Lady  Macbeth. 

Of  course,  Shakspere  does  not  mean  that  one  regard- 
ing that  portion  of  the  picture  alone,  could  see  the  eyes 
looking  sad  ;  but  that  the  sweet  ohaervance  of  the  whole 
so  roused  the  imagination  that  it  supplied  what  distance 
had  concealed,  keeping  the  far-off  likewise  in  sweet 
observance  with  the  whole  :  the  rest  pointed  that  Avay. 
— In  a  manner  something  like  this  are  we  conducted 
to  a  right  understanding  of  the  character  of  Lady 
Macbeth.     First  put  together  these  her  utterances : 

"You  do  unbend  your  noble  strength,  to  think 
So  brainsickly  of  things." 

"  Get  some  water, 
And  wash  this  filthy  witness  from  your  hands.*' 

"  The  sleeping  and  the  dead 
Are  but  as  pictures.** 

**  A  little  water  clears  us  of  this  deed.** 

"  When  all's  done, 
You  look  but  on  a  stool." 

**  You  lack  the  season  of  all  natures,  sleep.**— 


160  SHAKSrERE's    ART. 

Had  these  passages  stood  in  the  play  unmodified  by 
others,  we  might  have  judged  from  them  that  Shakspere 
intended  to  represent  Lady  Macbeth  as  an  utter 
materialist,  believing  in  nothing  beyond  the  immediate 
communications  of  the  senses.  But  when  we  find  them 
associated  with  such  passages  as  these  — 

"  Memory,  the  warder  of  the  brain, 
Shall  be  a  fume,  and  the  receipt  of  reason 
A  limbeck  only ;" 

"  Had  he  not  resembled 
My  father  as  he  slept,  I  had  done't  j 

"  These  deeds  must  not  be  thought 
After  these  ways ;  so,  it  will  make  us  mad  ;'* — 

then  we  find  that  our  former  theory  will  not  do,  for 
here  are  deeper  and  broader  foundations  to  build 
upon.  We  discover  that  Lady  Macbeth  was  an  un- 
believer morally  J  and  so  found  it  necessary  to  keep 
down  all  imagination,  which  is  the  upheaving  of  that 
inward  world  whose  very  being  she  would  have  anni- 
hilated. Yet  out  of  this  world  arose  at  last  the 
phantom  of  her  slain  self,  and  possessing  her  sleeping 
frame,  sent  it  out  to  wander  in  the  night,  and  rub  its 
distressed  and  blood-stained  hands  in  vain.  For,  as  in 
this  same  "  Rape  of  Lucrece," 

"  the  soul's  fair  temple  is  defaced  j 
To  whose  weak  ruins  muster  troops  of  cares, 
To  ask  the  spotted  princess  how  she  fares.** 

But  when  so  many  lines  of  delineation  meet,  and 
ran  into,  and  correct  one  another,  assuming  such  a 
natoial  and  vital  form,  that  there  is  no  making  of  a  point 


shakspere's  art.  161 

anywhere ;  arid  the  woman  is  shown  after  no  theory, 
but  according  to  the  natural  laws  of  human  declen- 
sion, we  feel  that  the  only  way  to  account  for  the 
perfection  of  the  representation  is  to  say  that,  given 
a  shadow,  Shakspere  had  the  power  to  place  himself 
so,  that  that  shadow  became  his  own — was  the  correct 
representation  as  shadow,  of  his  form  coming  between 
it  and  the  sunlight.  And  this  is  the  highest  dramatic 
gift  that  a  man  can  possess.  But  we  feel  at  the 
same  time,  that  this  is,  in  the  main,  not  so  much 
art  as  inspiration.  There  woidd  be,  in  all  probability, 
a  great  mingling  of  conscious  art  with  the  inspiration  ; 
but  the  lines  of  the  former  being  lost  in  the  geneml 
glow  of  the  latter,  we  may  be  left  where  we  were  as  to 
any  certainty  about  the  artistic  consciousness  of  Shak- 
spere. I  will  now  therefore  attempt  to  give  a  few 
plainer  instances  of  such  sweet  observance  in  his  own 
work  as  he  would  have  admired  in  a  painting. 

First,  then,  I  woidd  request  my  reader  to  think  how 
comparatively  seldom  Shakspere  uses  poetry  in  his 
plays.  The  whole  play  is  a  poem  in  the  highest  sense ; 
but  truth  forbids  him  to  make  it  the  rule  for  his 
characters  to  speak  poetically.  Their  speech  is  poetic 
in  relation  to  the  whole  and  the  end,  not  in  relation  to 
the  speaker,  or  in  the  immediate  utterance.  And  even 
although  their  speech  is  immediately  poetic,  in  this 
sense,  that  every  character  is  idealized ;  yet  it  is  idealized 
after  its  Hnd  ;  and  poetry  certainly  would  not  be  the 
ideal  speech  of  most  of  the  characters.  This  granted, 
let  us  look  at  the  exceptions  ;  we  shall  find  that  such 
passages  not  only  glow  with  poetic  loveliness  and  fervour, 

M 


162  shakspere's  are. 

but  are  very  jewels  of  s?red  observance,  whose  setting 
allows  them  their  force  as  lawful,  and  their  prominence 
as  natural.     I  will  mention  a  few  of  such. 

In  "  Julius  CaBsar,"  act  i.  scene  3,  we  are  inclined  to 
think  the  way  Casca  speaks,  quite  inconsistent  with 
the  "  sour  fashion  "  which  Cassius  very  justly  attributes 
to  him ;  till  we  remember  that  he  is  speaking  in  the 
midst  of  an  almost  supernatural  thunder-storm :  the 
hidden  electricity  of  the  man's  nature  comes  out  in 
poetic  forms  and  words,  in  response  to  the  wild  outburst 
of  the  overcharged  heavens  and  earth. 

•  Sli  ikspere  invariably  makes  the  dying  speak  poetic- 
rdly,  and  generally  prophetically,  recognizing  the  identity 
of  the  poetic  and  prophetic  moods,  in  their  highest 
development,  and  the  justice  that  gives  them  the  same 
name.  l'>ven  Sir  John,  poor  ruined  gentleman,  babbles 
of  green  fields.  Every  one  knows  that  the  passage  is 
disputed  :  I  believe  that  if  this  be  not  the  restoration 
of  the  original  reading,  Shakspere  himself  would  justify 
it,  and  wish  that  he  had  so  written  it. 

Romeo  and  Juliet  talk  poetry  as  a  matter  of  course. 

In  "  King  John,"  act  v.  scenes  4  and  5,  see  how 
differently  the  dying  Melun  and  the  living  and  vic- 
torious Lewis  regard  the  same  sunset :  * 

Melun. 

this  night,  whose  black  contagions  breath 

Already  smokes  about  the  burning  crest 
Of  the  old,  feeble,  and  day- wearied  sun. 

Lewis. 
The  sun  of  heaven,  methought,  was  loath  to  Bet| 
But  stayed,  and  made  the  western  welkin  blush, 
When  the  English  measured  backward  their  own  ground. 


shakspeee's  art.  163 

The  exquisite  duet  between  Lorenzo  and  Jessica^  in 
the  opening  of  the  fifth  act  of  "  The  Merchant  of 
Venice,"  finds  for  its  subject  the  circumstances  that 
produce  the  mood — the  lovely  night  and  the  crescent 
moon— which  first  make  them  talk  poetry,  then  call  for 
music,  and  next  speculate  upon  its  nature. 

Let  us  turn  now  to  some  instances  of  sweet  obser- 
vance in  other  kinds. 

There  is-  observance,  more  true  than  sweet,  in  the 
character  of  Jacques,  in  "As  You  Like  It :"  the  fault- 
finder in  age  was  the  fault-doer  in  youth  and  manhood. 
Jacques  patronizing  the  fool,  is  one  of  the  rarest  shows 
of  self-ignorance. 

In  the  same  play,  when  Rosalind  hears  that  Orlando 
is  in  the  wood,  she  cries  out,  "  Alas  the  day !  what 
shall  I  do  with  my  doublet  and  hose?"  And  when 
Orlando  asks  her,  "  Where  dwell  you,  pretty  youth?" 
she  answers,  tripping  in  her  role,  "  Here  in  the  skirts 
of  the  forest,  like  fringe  upon  a  petticoat." 

In  the  second  part  of  "  King  Henry  lY.,**  act  iv. 
scene  3,  Falsta;§  says  of  Prince  John :  "  Good  faith,  this 
same  young  sober-blooded  boy  doth  not  love  me;  nor 
a  man  cannot  make  him  laugh  ; — but  that's  no  marvel : 
he  drinks  no  wine,"  This  is  the  Prince  JoJin  who 
betrays  the  insurgents  afterwards  by  the  falsest  of 
quibbles,  and  gains  his  revenge  through  their  good 
faith. 

In  "  Kiag  Henry  IV.,"  act  i.  scene  2,  Poins  does 
not  say  Falstaff  is  a  coward  like  the  other  two ;  but 
only—  "  If  he  fight  longer  than  he  sees  reason,  I'll  for- 
swear arms."  Associate  this  with  FdLstajf^s  soliloquy 
M  2 


164 

about  honour  in  the  same  play,  act  v.  scene  1,  and  the 
true  character  of  his  courage  or  cowardice— for  it  may 
bear  either  name — comes  out. 

Is  there  not  conscious  art  in  representing  the  hospit- 
able face  of  the  castle  of  Macbeth,  bearing  on  it  a 
homely  welcome  in  the  multitude  of  the  nests  of  the 
temple-haunting  martlet  (Psalm  Ixxxiv.  3),  just  as  Lady 
Macbeth  J  the  fiend-soul  of  the  house,  steps  from  the 
door,  like  the  speech  of  the  building,  with  her  falsely 
smiled  welcome  ?     Is  there  not  observance  in  it  1 

But  the  production  of  such  instances  might  be  end- 
less, as  the  work  of  Shakspere  is  infinite.  I  confine 
myself  to  two  more,  taken  from  "The  Merchant  of 
Venice." 

Shakspere  requires  a  character  capable  of  the  mag- 
nificent devotion  of  friendship  which  the  old  story 
attributes  to  Antonio.  He  therefore  introduces  us  to 
a  man  sober  even  to  sadness,  thoughtful  even  to 
melancholy.  The  first  words  of  the  play  unveil  this 
characteristic.  He  holds  "  the  world  but  as  the 
world,"— 

**  A  stage  where  every  man  must  play  a  part, 
And  mine  a  sad  one." 

The  cause  of  this  sadness  we  are  left  to  conjecture. 
Antonio  himself  professes  not  to  know.  But  such  a 
disposition,  even  if  it  be  not  occasioned  by  any  definite 
event  or  object,  will  generally  associate  itself  with 
one ;  and  when  Antonio  is  accused  of  being  in  love, 
he  repels  the  accusation  with  only  a  sad  "  Fie  !  fie  !  " 
This,  and  his  whole  character,  seem  to  me  to  point  to 
an  old  but  ever  cherished  grief. 


SHAKSPERT    S    ART.  165 

Into  the  original  story  upon  which  this  play  ia 
founded,  Shakspere  has,  among  other  variations,  in- 
troduced the  story  of  Jessica  and  Lorenzo^  apparently 
altogether  of  his  own  invention.  What  was  his  ohject 
in  doing  so  ?  Surely  there  were  characters  and  interests 
enough  already  ! — It  seems  to  me  that  Shakspere 
douhted  whether  the  Jew  would  have  actually  pro- 
ceeded to  carry  out  his  fell  design  against  Antonio^  upon 
the  original  ground  of  his  hatred,  without  the  further 
incitement  to  revenge  afforded  hy  another  passion, 
second  only  to  his  love  of  gold— his  affection  for  his 
daughter ;  for  in  the  Jew  having  reference  to  his  o^vn 
property,  it  had  risen  to  a  passion.  Shakspere  there- 
fore invents  her,  that  he  may  send  a  dog  of  a  Christian 
to  steal  her,  and,  yet  worse,  to  tempt  her  to  steal  her 
father's  stones  and  ducats.  I  suspect  Shakspere  sends 
the  old  villain  off  the  stage  at  the  last  with  more  of  the 
pity  of  the  audience  than  any  of  the  other  dramatists 
of  the  time  would  have  ventured  to  rouse,  had  they 
been  capable  of  doing  so.  I  suspect  he  is  the  only 
human  Jew  of  the  English  drama  up  to  that  time. 

I  have  now  arrived  at  the  last  and  most  important 
stage  of  my  argument.  It  is  this  :  If  Shakspere  was 
so  weU  aware  of  the  artistic  relations  of  the  parts  of 
his  drama,  is  it  likely  that  the  grand  meanings  involved 
in  the  whole  were  unperceived  by  him,  and  conveyed 
to  us  without  any  intention  on  his  part  -  had  their  origin 
only  in  the  fact  that  he  dealt  with  human  nature  so 
truly,  that  his  representations  must  involve  whatever 
lessons  human  life  itself  involves  % 

1b  there  no  intention,  for  instance,  in  placing  Pros- 


166 

pero^  who  forsouk  the  duties  of  his  dukedom  for  the 
study  of  magic,  in  a  desert  island,  with  just  three 
subjects  ;  one,  a  monster  below  humanity  ;  the  second, 
a  creature  etherealized  beyond  it ;  and  the  third  a 
complete  embodiment  of  human  perfection  1  Is  it  not 
that  he  may  learn  how  to  rule,  and,  having  learned, 
return,  by  the  aid  of  his  magic  wisely  directed,  to  the 
home  and  duties  from  which  exclusive  devotion  to 
that  magic  had  driven  him  % 

In  "  Julius  Caesar,"  the  death  of  Brutus,  while  fol- 
lowing as  the  consequence  of  his  murder  of  CcesaVj  is 
yet  as  much  distinguished  in  character  from  that  death, 
as  the  character  of  Brutus  is  different  from  that  of 
Ccesar.  Ccesar's  last  words  were  Et  tu  Brute  ?  Bnitm, 
when  resolved  to  lay  violent  hands  on  himself,  takes 
leave  of  his  friends  with  these  words  : 

"  Countrymen, 
My  heart  doth  joy,  that  yet,  in  all  my  life, 
I  found  no  man,  but  he  was  true  to  me." 

Here  Shakspere  did  not  invent.  He  found  both 
speeches  in  Plutarch.     But  how  unerring  his  choice ! 

Is  the  final  catastrophe  in  "  Hamlet "  such,  because 
Shakspere  could  do  no  better  1 — It  is  :  he  could  do 
no  better  than  the  best.  Where  but  in  the  regions 
beyond  could  such  questionings  as  Hamlcfs  be  put  to 
rest  1  It  would  have  been  a  fine  thing  indeed  for  the 
most  nobly  perplexed  of  thinkers  to  be  left — his  love 
in  the  grave ;  the  memory  of  his  father  a  torment,  of 
his  mother  a  blot ;  with  innocent  blood  on  his  inno- 
cent hands,  and  but  half  understood  by  his  best  friend 


shakspere's  art.  167 

— to  ascend  in  desolate  dreariness  the  contemptible 
height  of  the  degraded  throne,  and  shine  the  first  in  a 
drunken  court ! 

Before  bringing  forward  my  last  instance,  I  will 
direct  the  attention  of  my  readers  to  a  passage,  in 
another  play,  in  which  the  lesson  of  the  play  I  am 
about  to  speak  of,  is  directly  taught :  the  first  speech 
in  the  second  act  of  "  As  You  Like  It,"  might  be  made 
a  text  for  the  exposition  of  the  whole  play  of  "  King 
Lear." 

The  banished  duke  is  seeking  to  bring  his  courtiers 
to  regard  their  exile  as  a  part  of  their  moral  training. 
I  am  aware  that  I  point  the  passage  difi'erently,  while 
I  revert  to  the  old  text. 

•*  Are  not  these  woods 
More  free  from  peril  than  the  envioua  court  f 
Here  feel  we  not  the  penalty  of  Adam — 
The  season's  difference,  as  the  icy  fang, 
And  churlish  chiding  of  the  winter's  wind  P 
Which,  when  it  bites  and  blows  upon  my  body^ 
Even  till  I  shrink  with  cold,  I  smile  and  say— • 
This  is  no  flattery ;  these  are  counsellors 
That  feelingly  persuade  me  what  I  am. 
Sweet  are  the  uses  of  adrersity." 

The  line  Here  feel  ice  not  the  penalty  of  Adam  f  has 
given  rise  to  much  perplexity.  The  expounders  of 
SliaksjDere  do  not  believe  he  can  mean  that  the  uses  of 
adversity  are  really  sweet.  But  the  duke  sees  that 
tlie  penalty  of  Adam  is  what  makes  the  woods  more 
free  from  p&ril  than  the  emnous  court;  that  this 
penalty  is  in  fact  the  best  blessing,  for  it  feelingly 
permades  man  what  he  is ;  and  to  know  what  we  axe, 


168  siiakspeee's  aet. 

to  have  no  false  judgments  of  ourselves,  he  considers 
so  sweet,  that  to  be  thus  taught,  the  churlish  chiding 
of  the  icinter^s  wind  is  well  endured. 

Now  let  us  turn  to  Lear.  We  find  in  him  an  old 
man  with  a  large  heart,  hungry  for  love,  and  yet  not 
knowing  what  love  is ;  an  old  man  as  ignorant  as  a 
child  in  all  matters  of  high  import ;  with  a  temper  so 
unsubdued,  and  therefore  so  unkingly,  that  he  storms 
because  his  dinner  is  not  ready  by  the  clock  of  his 
hunger ;  a  child,  in  short,  in  everything  but  his  grey 
hairs  and  wrinkled  face,  but  his  failing,  instead  of 
growing,  strength.  K  a  life  end  so,  let  the  success  of 
that  life  be  otherwise  what  it  may,  it  is  a  wretched  and 
unworthy  end.  But  let  Lear  be  blown  by  the  winds 
and  beaten  by  the  rains  of  heaven,  till  he  pities  "  poor 
naked  wretches ;"  tiU  he  feels  that  he  has  "  ta'en  too 
little  care  of  "  such ;  tiU  pomp  no  longer  conceals  from 
him  what  *'  a  poor,  bare,  forked  animal "  he  is  ;  and  the 
old  king  has  risen  higher  in  the  real  social  scale — the 
scale  of  that  country  to  which  he  is  bound — far  higher 
than  he  stood  while  he  still  held  his  kingdom  undivided 
to  his  thankless  daughters.  Then  let  him  learn  at  last 
that  "  love  is  the  only  good  in  the  world  f  let  him 
find  his  Cordelia,  and  plot  with  her  how  they  will 
in  their  dungeon  singing  like  birds  €  the  cage,  and, 
dwelling  in  the  secret  place  of  peace,  look  abroad  on 
the  world  like  God's  spies  ;  and  then  let  the  generous 
great  old  heart  swell  till  it  breaks  at  last — not  with 
rage  and  hate  and  vengeance,  but  with  love ;  and  all  is 
well :  it  is  time  the  man  should  go  to  overtake  his 
daughter ;  henceforth  to  dwell  with  her  in  the  home 


shakspeee's  akt.  169 

of  the  trae,  the  eternal,  the  unchangeable.  All  his 
suffering  came  from  his  own  fault ;  but  from  the  suffer- 
ing has  sprung  another  crop,  not  of  evil  but  of  good ; 
the  seeds  of  which  had  lain  unfruitful  in  the  soil,  but 
were  brought  within  the  blessed  influences  of  the  air 
of  heaven  by  the  sharp  tortures  of  the  ploughshare 
ofilL 


THE  ELDER  HAMLET. 

*Tis  bitter  cold, 
And  I  am  sick  at  heart. 

HE  ghost  in  "Hamlet"  is  as  faithfully 
treated  as  any  character  in  the  play. 
Next  to  Hamlet  himself,  he  is  to  me  the 
most  interesting  person  of  the  drama. 
The  rumour  of  his  appearance  is  wrapped  in  the 
larger  rumour  of  war.  Loud  preparations  for  uncertain 
attack  fill  the  ears  of  "  the  subject  of  the  land,"  The 
state  is  troubled.  The  new  king  has  hardly  compassed 
his  election  before  his  marriage  with  his  brother's 
widow  swathes  the  court  in  the  dust-cloud  of  shame, 
which  the  merriment  of  its  forced  revelry  can  do  little 
to  dispel.  A  feeling  is  in  the  moral  air  to  which  the 
words  of  Francisco,  the  only  words  of  significance  he 
utters,  give  the  key :  "  *Tis  bitter  cold,  and  I  am  sick 
at  heart."  Into  the  frosty  air,  the  pallid  moonlight, 
the  drunken  shouts  of  Claudius  and  his  court,  the 
bellowing  of  the  cannon  from  the  rampart  for  the 
enlargement  of  the  insane  clamour  that  it  may  beat  the 
dram  of  its  own  disgrace  at  the  portals  of  heaven, 
glides  the  silent  prisoner  of  hell,  no  longer  a  king  of 
the  day  walking  about  his  halls,  "  the  observed  of  all 
1  1876. 


THE    ELDER    HAMLET.  171 

observers,"  but  a  thrall  of  the  night,  wandering  between 
the  bell  and  the  cock,  like  a  jailer  on  each  side  of  him. 
A  poet  tells  the  tale  of  the  king  who  lost  his  garments 
and  ceased  to  be  a  king  :  here  is  the  king  who  has 
lost  his  body,  and  in  the  eyes  of  his  court  has  ceased 
to  be  a  man.  Is  the  cold  of  the  earth's  night  pleasant 
to  liim  after  the  purging  fire?  What  crimes  had  the 
honest  ghost  committed  in  his  days  of  nature  ?  He 
calls  them  foul  crimes!  Could  such  be  his?  Only 
who  can  tell  how  a  ghost,  with  his  doubled  experience, 
ma\-  think  of  this  thing  or  that  ?  The  ghost  and  the 
fire  may  between  them  distinctly  recognize  that  as  a 
foul  crime  which  the  man  and  the  court  regarded  as  a 
weakness  at  worst,  and  indeed  in  a  king  laudabla 

Alas,  poor  ghost !  Around  the  house  he  flits, 
shifting  and  shadowy,  over  the  ground  he  once  paced 
in  ringing  armour — armed  still,  but  his  very  armour  a 
shadow  !  It  cannot  keep  out  the  arrow  of  the  cock's 
cry,  and  the  heart  that  pierces  is  no  shadow.  Where 
now  15  the  loaded  axe  with  which,  in  angry  dispute, 
he  smote  the  ice  at  his  feet  that  cracked  to  the  blow  ? 
Where  is  the  arm,  that  heaved  the  axe  ?  Wasting  in 
the  marble  maw  of  the  sepulchre,  and  the  arm  he 
carries  now — I  know  not  what  it  can  do,  but  it  cannot 
slay  his  murderer.  For  that  he  seeks  his  son's. 
Doubtless  his  new  ethereal  form  has  its  capacities  and 
privileges.  It  can  shift  its  garb  at  wiU ;  can  appear  in 
mail  or  night-gown,  unaided  of  armourer  or  tailor ;  can 
pass  through  Hades-gates  or  chamber-door  with  equal 
ease ;  can  work  in  the  ground  Hke  mole  or  pioneer,  and 
let  its  voice  be  heard  from  the  cellaiago.    But  tbeie  It 


172  THE    ELDER   HAMLET. 

one  to  whom  it  cannot  appear,  one  wlioin  the  ghost 
can  see,  but  to  whom  he  cannot  show  himself.  She 
has  built  a  doorless,  windowless  wall  between  them, 
and  sees  the  husband  of  her  youth  no  more.  Outside 
her  heart— that  is  the  night  in  which  he  wanders, 
while  the  palace-windows  are  flaring,  and  the  low  wind 
throbs  to  the  wassail  shouts  :  within,  his  murderer  sits 
by  the  wife  of  his  bosom,  and  in  the  orchard  the  spilt 
poison  is  yet  gnawing  at  the  roots  of  the  daisies. 

Twice  has  the  ghost  grown  out  of  the  night  upon 
the  eyes  of  the  sentinels.  With  solemn  march,  slow 
and  stately,  three  times  each  night,  has  he  walked  by 
them  ;  they,  jellied  with  fear,  have  uttered  no  challenge. 
They  seek  Horatio,  who  the  third  night  speaks  to  him 
as  a  scholar  can.  To  the  first  challenge  he  makes  no 
answer,  but  stalks  away  ;  to  the  second, 

It  lifted  up  its  head,  and  did  address 
Itself  to  motion,  like  as  it  would  speak  j 

but  the  gaoler  cock  calls  him,  and  the  kingly  shape 

started  like  a  guilty  thing 
Upon  a  fearful  summons ;  _ 

and  then 

shrunk  in  haste  away, 
And  vanished  from  our  sight. 

Ah,  that  summons !  at  which  majesty  welks  and 
shrivels,  the  king  and  soldier  starts  and  cowers,  and, 
armour  and  aU,  withers  from  the  air  ! 

But  why  has  he  not  spoken  before?  why  not  now 
ere  the  cock  could  claim  him  1  He  cannot  trust  the 
men.    His  court  has  f  oisaken  his  memoiy — crowds 


THE    ELDEK    HAMLET.  173 

with  as  eager  discontent  about  the  mildewed  ear  as 
ever  about  his  wholesome  brother,  and  how  should  he 
trust  mere  sentinels  ?  There  is  but  one  who  will  heed 
his  tale.  A  word  to  any  other  would  but  defeat  his 
intent.  Out  of  the  multitude  of  courtiers  and  subjects, 
in  all  the  land  of  Denmark,  there  is  but  one  whom  he 
can  trust — his  student-son.  Him  he  has  not  yet  found 
— ^the  condition  of  a  ghost  involving  strange  difficulties. 

Or  did  the  horror  of  the  men  at  the  sight  of  him 
wound  and  repel  himi  Does  the  sense  of  regal 
dignity,  not  yet  exhausted  for  all  the  fasting  in  fires, 
unite  with  that  of  grievous  humiliation  to  make  him 
shun  their  speech  ? 

But  Horatio — why  does  the  ghost  not  answer  him 
ere  the  time  of  the  cock  is  come  ?  Does  he  fold  the 
cloak  of  indignation  around  him  because  his  son's 
friend  has  addressed  him  as  an 'intruder  on  the  night, 
an  usurper  of  the  form  that  is  his -own?  The  com- 
panions of  the  speaker  take  note  that  he  is  offended 
and  stalks  away. 

Much  has  the  kingly  ghost  to  endure  in  his  attempt 
to  reopen  relations  with  the  world  he  has  left :  when 
he  has  overcome  his  wrath  and  returns,  that  moment 
Horatio  again  insults  him,  calling  him  an  illusion. 
But  this  time  he  will  bear  it,  and  opens  his  mouth  to 
speak.  It  is  too  late ;  the  cock  is  awake,  and  he  must 
go.  Then  alas  for  the  buried  majesty  of  Denmark  ! 
with  upheaved  halberts  they  strike  at  the  shadow,  and 
would  stop  it  if  they  might — usage  so  grossly  unfitting 
that  they  are  instantly  ashamed  of  it  themselves,  recog- 
nizing the  offence  in  the  majesty  of  the  offended.     But 


174  THE    ELDER    HAMLET. 

he  is  already  gone.  The  proud,  angry  king  has  found 
himself  but  a  thing  of  nothing  to  his  body-guard— for 
he  has  lost  the  body  which  was  their  guard.  Still,  not 
even  yet  has  he  learned  how  little  it  lies  in  the  power 
of  an  honest  ghost  to  gain  credit  for  himself  or  his  tale  ! 
His  very  privileges  are  against  him. 

All  this  time  his  son  is  consuming  his  heart  in  the 
knowledge  of  a  mother  capable  of  so  soon  and  so  utterly 
forgetting  such  a  husband,  and  in  pity  and  sorrow  for 
the  dead  father  who  has  had  such  a  wife.  He  is  thirty 
years  of  age,  an  obedient,  honourable  son  -  a  man  of 
thought,  of  faith,  of  aspiration.  Him  now  the  ghost 
seeks,  his  heart  burning  like  a  coal  with  the  sense  of 
■unendurable  wrong.  He  is  seeking  the  one  drop  -that 
can  fall  cooling  on  that  heart -the  sympathy,  the 
answering  rage  and  grief  of  his  boy.  But  when  at 
length  he  finds  him,  the  generous,  loving  father  has  to 
see  that  son  tremble  like  an  aspen-leaf  in  his  doubtful 
presence.  He  has  exposed  himself  to  the  shame  of 
eyes  and  the  indignities  of  dullness,  that  he  may  pour 
the  pent  torrent  of  his  wrongs  into  his  ears,  but  his 
disfranchisement  from  the  flesh  tells  against  him 
even  with  his  son  :  the  young  Hamlet  is  doubtful  of 
the  identity  of  the  apparition  with  his  father.  After 
all  the  burning  words  of  the  phantom,  the  spirit  he 
has  seen  may  yet  be  a  devil ;  the  devil  has  power  to 
assume  a  pleasing  shape,  and  is  perhaps  taking  advan- 
tage of  his  melancholy  to  damn  him. 

Armed  in  the  complete  steel  of  a  suit  well  known 
to  the  eyes  of  the  sentinels,  visionary  none  the  less, 
with  useless  truncheon  in  hand,  resuming  the  memory 


THE    ELDEK    HAMLET.  175 

of  old  martial  habits,  but  with  quiet  countenance,  more 
in  sorrow  than  in  anger,  troubled— not  now  with  the 
thought  of  the  hell-day  to  which  he  must  sleepless 
return,  but  with  that  unceasing  ache  at  the  heart,  which 
ever,  as  often  as  he  is  released  into  the  cooling  air  of 
the  upper  world,  draws  him  back  to  the  region  of  his 
wrongs — where  having  fallen  asleep  in  his  orchard,  in 
sacred  security  and  old  custom,  suddenly,  by  cruel 
assault,  he  was  flung  into  Hades,  where  horror  upon 
horror  awaited  him — worst  horror  of  all,  the  knowledge 
of  his  wife  ! — armed  he  comes,  in  shadowy  armour  but 
how  real  sorrow  !  Still  it  is  not  pity  he  seeks  from  his 
son:  he  needs  it  not — he  can  endure.  There  is  no 
weakness  in  the  ghost.  It  is  but  to  the  imperfect 
human  sense  that  he  is  shadowy.  To  himself  lie  knows 
his  doom  his  deliverance ;  that  the  heU  in  which  he 
finds  himself  shall  endure  but  until  it  has  burnt  up  the 
hell  he  has  found  within  him — until  the  evil  he  was 
and  is  capable  of  shall  have  dropped  from  him  into  the 
lake  of  fire  ;  he  nerves  himself  to  bear.  And  the  cry 
of  revenge  that  comes  from  the  sorrowful  lips  is  the 
cry  of  a  king  and  a  Dane  rather  than  of  a  wronged 
man.  It  is  for  public  justice  and  not  individual  ven- 
geance he  caUs.  He  cannot  endure  that  the  royal  bed 
of  Denmark  should  be  a  couch  for  luxury  and  damned 
incest.  To  stay  this  he  would  bring  the  murderer  to 
justice.  There  is  a  worse  wrong,  for  which  he  seeks 
no  revenge  :  it  involves  his  wife ;  and  there  comes  in 
love,  and  love  knows  no  amends  but  amendment,  seeks 
only  the  repentance  tenfold  more  needful  to  the  wronger 
than  the  wronged.     It  is  not  alone  the  father's  care  for 


176  THE    ELDER    HAMLET. 

the  human  nature  of  his  son  that  warns  him  to  take  no 
measures  against  his  mother ;  it  is  the  husband's  ten- 
derness also  for  her  who  once  lay  in  his  bosom.  The 
murdered  brother,  the  dethroned  king,  the  dishonoured 
husband,  the  tormented  sinner,  is  yet  a  gentle  ghost. 
Has  suffering  already  begun  to  make  him,  like  Pro- 
metheus, wise? 

But  to  measure  the  gentleness,  the  forgiveness,  the 
tenderness  of  the  ghost,  we  must  well  understand  his 
wrongs.  The  murder  is  plain ;  but  there  is  that  which 
went  before  and  is  worse,  yet  is  not  so  plain  to  every 
eye  that  reads  the  story.  There  is  that  without  which 
the  murder  had  never  been,  and  which,  therefore,  is  a 
cause  of  all  the  wrong.  For  listen  to  what  the  ghost 
reveals  when  at  length  he  has  withdrawn  his  son  that 
he  may  speak  with  him  alone,  and  Hamlet  has  fore- 
stalled the  disclosure  of  the  murderer  : 

"Ay,  tliat  incestuous,  that  adulterate  beast, 
"With  witchcraft  of  his  wit,  with  traitorous  gifts, 
(0  wicked  wit  and  gifts  that  have  the  power 
So  to  seduce  !)  won  to  his  shameful  lust 
The  will  of  my  most  seeming  virtuous  queen : 
Oh,  Hamlet,  what  a  falling  oif  was  there  ! 
From  me,  whose  love  was  of  that  dignity 
That  it  went  hand  in  hand  even  with  the  vow 
I  made  to  her  in  marriage,  and  to  decline 
Upon  a  wretch,  whose  natural  gifts  were  poor 
To  those  of  mine ! 

But  virtue — as  it  never  will  be  moved 
Though  lewdness  court  it  in  a  shape  of  heaveii. 
So  lust,  though  to  a  radiant  angel  linked, 
Will  sate  itself  in  a  celestial  bed. 
And  prey  on  garbage." 

Beading  this  passage,  can  any  one  doubt  that  the 


THE    ELDEK    HAMLET.  177 

ghost  charges  his  late  wife  with  adultery,  as  the  root 
of  all  his  woes  1  It  is  true  that,  obedient  to  the  ghost's 
injunctions,  as  well  as  his  own  filial  instincts,  Hamlet 
accuses  his  mother  of  no  more  than  was  patent  to  all 
the  world;  but  unless  we  suppose  the  ghost  misinformed 
or  mistaken,  we  must  accept  this  charge.  And  had 
Gertrude  not  yielded  to  the  witchcraft  of  Claudius' 
wit,  Claudius  would  never  have  murdered  Hamlet. 
Through  her  his  life  was  dishonoured,  and  his  death 
violent  and  premature :  unhuzled,  disappointed,  un- 
aneled,  he  woke  to  the  air — not  of  his  orchard-blossoms, 
but  of  a  prison-house,  the  lightest  word  of  whoso 
terrors  would  freeze  the  blood  of  the  listener.  What 
few  men  can  say,  he  could — that  his  love  to  his  wife 
had  kept  even  step  with  the  vow  he  made  to  her  in 
marriage ;  and  his  son  says  of  him — 

**  so  loving  to  my  mother 
That  he  might  not  beteem  the  winds  of  heaven 
Yisit  hor  face  too  roughly  ;" 

and  this  was  her  return !  Yet  is  it  thus  he  charges  his 
son  concerning  her : 

"  But  howsoever  thou  pursu'st  this  act, 
Taint  not  thy  mind,  nor  let  thy  soul  contrive 
Against  thy  mother  aught ;  leave  her  to  heaven, 
And  to  those  thorns  that  in  her  bosom  lodge, 
To  prick  and  sting  her." 

And  may  we  not  suppose  it  to  be  for  her  sake  in  part 
that  the  ghost  insists,  with  fourfold  repetition,  upon 
a  sword-sworn  oath  to  silence  from  Horatio  and  Mar- 
cellus  ? 

Only  once  again  does  he  show  himself — not  now  in 


178  THE    ELDER    HAMLET 

armour  upon  the  walls,  but  in  his  gown  and  in  his 

wife's  closet. 

Ever  since  his  first  appearance,  that  is,  all  the  time 
filling  the  interval  between  the  first  and  second  acts, 
we  may  presume  him  to  have  haunted  the  palace  un- 
seen, waiting  what  his  son  would  do.  But  the  task 
has  been  more  difficult  than  either  had  supposed.  The 
ambassadors  have  gone  to  ISTorway  and  returned ;  but 
Hamlet  has  done  nothing.  Probably  he  has  had  no 
opportunity;  certainly  he  has  had  no  clear  vision  of 
duty.  But  now  all  through  the  second  and  third  acts, 
together  occupjdng,  it  must  be  remembered,  only  one 
day,  something  seems  imminent.  The  play  has  been 
acted,  and  Hamlet  has  gained  some  assurance,  yet  the 
one  chance  presented  of  killing  the  king — at  his 
prayers—  he  has  refused.  He  is  now  in  his  mother's 
closet,  whose  eyes  he  has  turned  into  her  very  souL 
There,  and  then,  the  ghost  once  more  appears — come, 
he  says,  to  whet  his  son's  almost  blunted  purpose. 
But,  as  I  have  said,  he  does  not  know  all  the  dis- 
advantages of  one  who,  having  forsaken  the  world,  has 
yet  business  therein  to  which  he  would  persuade ;  he 
does  not  know  how  hard  it  is  for  a  man  to  give  credence 
to  a  ghost ;  how  thoroughly  he  is  justified  in  delay,  and 
the  demand  for  more  perfect  proof.  He  does  not  know 
what  good  reasons  his  son  has  had  for  uncertainty,  or 
how  much  natural  and  righteous  doubt  has  had  to  do 
with  what  he  takes  for  the  blunting  of  his  purpose. 
Neither  does  he  know  how  much  more  tender  his  son's 
conscience  is  than  his  own,  or  how  necessary  it  is  to 
him  to  be  sure  before  he  acts.     As  little  perhaps  does 


THE    ELDER    HAMLET.  179 

he  tmderstand  how  hateful  to  Hamlet  is  the  task  laid 
upon  him — the  killing  of  one  wretched  villain  in  the 
midst  of  a  corrupt  and  contemptible  court,  one  of  a 
world  of  whose  women  his  mother  may  he  the  type  ! 

Whatever  the  main  object  of  the  ghost's  appearance, 
he  has  spoken  but  a  few  words  concerning  the  matter 
between  him  and  Hamlet,  when  he  turns  abruptly  from 
it  to  plead  with  his  son  for  his  wife.  The  ghost  sees 
and  mistakes  the  terror  of  her  looks ;  imaguies  that, 
either  from  some  feeling  of  his  presence,  or  from  the 
power  of  Hamlet's  words,  her  conscience  is  thoroughly 
roused,  and  that  her  vision,  her  conception  of  the  facts, 
is  now  more  than  she  can  bear.  She  and  her  fighting 
soul  are  at  odds.  She  is  a  kingdom  divided  against 
itself.  He  fears  the  consequences.  He  would  not  have 
her  go  mad.  He  would  not  have  her  die  yet.  Even 
while  ready  to  start  at  the  summons  of  that  hell  to 
which  she  has  sold  him,  he  forgets  his  vengeance  on 
her  seducer  in  his  desire  to  comfort  her.  He  dares 
not,  if  he  could,  manifest  himself  to  her :  what 
word  of  consolation  could  she  hear  from  Ms  lips  1  Is 
not  the  thought  of  him  her  one  despair?  He  turns 
to  his  son  for  help :  he  cannot  console  his  wife ;  his 
son  must  take  his  place.  Alas  !  even  now  he  thinks 
better  of  her  than  she  deserves ;  for  it  is  only  the  fancy 
of  her  son's  madness  that  is  terrifying  her :  he  gazes 
on  the  apparition  of  which  she  sees  nothing,  and 
from  his  looks  she  anticipates  an  ungovernable  out- 
break. 

"  But  look  ;  amazement  on  tliy  mother  sits  I 
Oh  ;  step  between  her  and  her  fighting  soul 
N   2 


180  THE    ELDEE   HAMLET 

Conceit  in  weakest  bodies  strongest  works. 
Speak  CO  her,  Hamlet." 

The  call  to  his  son  to  soothe  his  wicked  mother  is 
the  ghost's  last  utterance.  For  a  few  moments,  sadly 
regardful  of  the  two,  he  stands — while  his  son  seeks 
in  vain  to  reveal  to  his  mother  the  presence  of  his 
father-  a  few  moments  of  piteous  action,  all  but  ruining 
the  remnant  of  his  son's  sorely-harassed  self-possession 
— his  whole  concern  his  wife's  distress,  and  neither  his 
own  doom  nor  his  son's  duty;  then,  as  if  lost  in 
despair  at  the  impassable  gulf  betwixt  them,  revealed 
by  her  utter  incapacity  for  even  the  imagination  of  his 
proximity,  he  turns  away,  and  steals  out  at  the  portaL 
Or  perhaps  he  has  heard  the  black  cock  crow,  and  is 
wanted  beneath  :  his  turn  has  come. 

Will  the  fires  ever  cleanse  lier  ?  Will  his  love  ever 
lift  him  above  the  pain  of  its  loss  ?  Will  eternity  ever 
bo  bliss,  ever  be  endurable  to  poor  King  Hamlet  ? 

Alas  !  even  the  memory  of  the  poor  ghost  is  insulted. 
Night  after  night  on  the  stage  his  effigy  appears — 
cadaverous,  sepulchral — no  longer  as  Shakspere  must 
liave  represented  him,  aerial,  shadowy,  gracious,  the 
thill  corporeal  husk  of  an  eternal — shall  I  say  inefface- 
aVJe? — sorrow!  It  is  no  hollow  monotone  that  can 
^i.^htly  upbear  such  words  as  his,  but  a  sound  mingled 
of  distance  and  wind  in  the  pine-tops,  of  agony  and 
love,  of  horror  and  hope  and  Iqss  and  judgment — a 
voice  of  endless  and  sweetest  inflection,  yet  with  a 
shuddering  echo  in  it  as  from  the  caves  of  memory, 
on  whose  walls  are  written  the  eternal  blazon  that 
must  not  be  to  ears  of  flesh  and  blood.    The  spirit 


THE   ELDEE   HAMLET.  181 

that  can  assume  form  at  will  must  surely  be  able  to 
bend  that  form  to  completest  and  most  delicate  ex- 
pression, and  the  part  of  the  ghost  in  the  play  offers 
work  worthy  of  the  highest  artist.  The  would-be 
actor  takes  from  it  vitality  and  motion,  endowing  it 
instead  with  the  rigidity  of  death,  as  if  the  soul  had 
resumed  its  cast-off  garment,  the  stiffened  and  mouldy 
corpse — ^whose  frozen  deadness  it  could  ill  model  to 
the  utterance  of  its  lively  will  1 


ON  POLISH. 

Y  Polish  I  mean  a  certain  well-known 
and  immediately  recognizable  condition 
of  surface.  But  I  must  request  my 
reader  to  consider  well  what  this  condi- 
on  really  is.  For  the  definition  of  it  appears  to 
to  be,  that  condition  of  surface  which  allows  the 
luner  structure  of  the  material  to  manifest  itself. 
Polish  is,  as  it  were,  a  translucent  skin,  in  which  the 
life  of  the  inorganic  comes  to  the  surface,  as  in  the 
animal  skin  the  animal  life.  Once  clothed  in  this,  the 
iimer  glories  of  the  marble  rock,  of  the  jasper,  of  the 
porphyry,  leave  the  darkness  behind,  and  glow  into  the 
day.  From  the  heart  of  the  agate  the  mossy  landscape 
comes  dreaming  out.  From  the  depth  of  the  green 
chrysolite  looks  up  the  eye  of  its  gold.  The  "  goings 
on  of  life "  hidden  for  ages  under  the  rough  bark  of 
the  patient  forest-trees,  are  brought  to  light ;  the  rings 
of  lovely  shadow  which  the  creature  went  on  making 
in  the  dark,  as  the  oyster  its  opaline  laminations,  and 
its  tree-pearls  of  beautiful  knots,  where  a  beneficent 
disease  has  broken  the  geometrical  perfection  of  its 
structure,  gloom  out  in  their  infinite  variousness. 

I^or  are  the  revelations  of  polish  confined  to  things 
having  variety  in  their   internal  construction;   they 
>  1866. 


ON    POLISH.  183 

operate  equally  in  things  of  homogeneous  structure. 
It  is  the  polished  ebony  or  jet  which  gives  the  true 
blank,  the  material  darkness.  It  is  the  polished  steel 
that  shines  keen  and  remorseless  and  cold,  like  that 
luiinan  justice  whose  symbol  it  is.  And  in  the  polished 
diamond  the  distinctive  purity  is  most  evident;  while 
from  it,  I  presume,  will  the  light  absorbed  from  the 
sun  gleam  forth  on  the  dark  most  plentifully. 

But  the  mere  fact  that  the  end  of  polish  is  revela- 
tion, can  hanlly  be  worth  setting  forth  except  for  some- 
ulterior  object,  some  further  revelation  in  the  fact 
itself. — I  wish  to  show  that  in  the  symbolic  use  of  the 
word  the  same  truth  is  involved,  or,  if  not  involved,  at 
least  suggested.  But  let  me  first  make  another  remark 
on  the  preceding  definition  of  the  word. 

There  is  no  denying  that  the  first  notion  suggested 
by  the  word  polish  is  that  of  smoothness,  which  will 
indeed  be  the  sole  idea  associated  with  it  before  we 
begin  to  contemplate  the  matter.  But  when  we  con- 
sider Avhat  things  are  chosen  to  be  "  clothed  upon " 
with  this  smoothness,  then  we  find  that  the  smoothness 
is  scarcely  desired  for  its  own  sake,  and  remember 
besides  that  in  many  materials  and  situations  it  is 
elaborately  avoided.  We  find  that  here  it  is  sought 
because  of  its  faculty  of  enabling  other  things  to  show 
themselves — to  come  to  the  surface. 

I  proceed  then  to  examine  how  far  my  pregnant 
interpretation  of  the  word  will  apply  to  its  figurative 
use  in  two  cases — Polish  of  Style,  and  Polish  of 
Manners.  The  two  might  be  treated  together,  seeing 
that  Style  may  be  called  the  manners  of  intellectiuil 


184  ON  POLISH. 

utterance,  and  Manners  the  style  of  social  utterance ; 
but  it  is  more  convenient  to  treat  them  separately. 

I  will  begin  with  the  Polish  of  Style. 

It  will  be  seen  at  once  that  if  the  notion  of  polish 
be  limited  to  that  of  smoothness,  there  can  be  little  to 
say  on  the  matter,  arid  nothing  worthy  of  being  said. 
For  mere  smoothness  is  no  more  a  desirable  quality  in 
a  style  than  it  is  in  a  country  or  a  countenance  ;  and 
its  pursuit  will,  result  at  length  in  the  gain  of  the 
monotonous  and  the  loss  of  the  melodious  and  har- 
monious. But  it  is  only  upon  worthless  material  that 
polish  can  be  mere  smoothness  ;  and  where  the  material 
is  not  valuable,  polish  can  be  nothing  but  smoothness. 
No  amount  of  polish  in  a  style  can  render  the  produc- 
tion of  value,  except  there  be  in  it  embodied  thought 
thereby  revealed  ;  and  the  labour  of  the  polish  is  lost. 
Let  us  then  take  the  fuller  meaning  of  polish,  and  see 
how  it  wiU  apply  to  style. 

If  it  applies,  then  Polish  of  Style  will  imply  the 
approximately  complete  revelation  of  the  thought.  It 
will  be  the  removal  of  everything  that  can  interfere 
between  the  thought  of  the  speaker  and  the  mind  of 
the  hearer.  True  polish  in  marble  or  in  speech  reveals 
inlying  realities,  and,  in  the  latter  at  least,  mere 
smoothness,  either  of  sound  or  of  meaning,  is  not 
worthy  of  the  name.  The  most  polished  style  will  be 
that  which  most  immediately  and  most  truly  flashes 
the  meaning  embodied  in  the  utterance  upon  the  mind 
of  the  listener  or  reader. 

"Will  you  then,"  I  imagine  a  reader  objecting^ 
<'  admit  of  no  ornament  in  style  I** 


ON  POLISH.  185 

■•  Assuredly,"  I  answer,  "  I  would  admit  of  no  oma- 

ment  whatever." 

But  let  me  explain  what  I  mean  by  ornament.  I 
mean  anything  stuck  in  or  on,  like  a  spangle,  because 
it  is  pretty  in  itself,  although  it  reveals  nothing.  'Not 
one  such  ornament  can  belong  to  a  polished  style.  It 
is  paint,  not  polish.  And  if  this  is  not  what  my  ques- 
tioner means  by  ornament,  my  answer  must  then  be  read 
according  to  the  differences  in  his  definition  of  the 
word.  What  I  have  said  has  not  the  least  application 
to  the  natural  forms  of  beauty  which  thought  assumes 
in  speech.  Between  such  beauty  and  such  ornament 
there  lies  the  same  difference  as  between  the  overflow 
of  life  in  the  hair,  and  the  dressing  of  that  loveliest  of 
utterances  in  grease  and  gold. 

For,  when  I  say  that  polish  is  the  removal  of  every- 
thing that  comes  between  thought  and  thinking,  it 
must  not  be  supposed  that  in  my  idea  thought  is  only 
of  the  intellect,  and  therefore  that  all  forms  but  bare 
intellectual  forms  are  of  the  nature  of  ornament.  As 
well  might  one  say  that  the  only  essential  portion  of 
the  human  form  is  the  bones.  And  every  human 
thought  is  in  a  sense  a  human  being,  has  as  necessarily 
its  muscles  of  motion,  its  skin  of  beauty,  its  blood  of 
feeling,  as  its  skeleton  of  logic.  For  complete  utter- 
ance, music  itself  in  its  right  proportions,  sometimes 
clear  and  strong,  as  in  rhymed  harmonies,  sometimes 
veiled  and  dim,  as  in  the  prose  compositions  of  the 
masters  of  speech,  is  as  necessary  as  correctness  of 
logic,  and  common  sense  in  construction.  I  should 
have  said  conveyance  rather  than  utterance ;  for  there 


t86  ON    POLISH. 

may  be  utterance  such  as  to  relieve  the  mind  of  th» 
speaker  with  more  or  less  of  fancied  communication, 
while  the  conveyance  of  thought  may  be  little  or  none  ; 
as  in  the  speaking  with  tongues  of  the  infant  Church, 
to  which  the  lovely  babblement  of  our  children  has 
probably  more  than  a  figurative  resemblance,  relieving 
their  own  minds,  but,  the  interpreter  not  yet  at  his 
post,  neither  instructing  nor  misleading  any  one.  But 
as  the  object  of  grown-up  speech  must  in  the  main 
be  the  conveyance  of  thought,  and  not  the  mere  utter- 
ance, everything  in  the  style  of  that  speech  which 
interposes  between  the  mental  eyes  and  the  thought 
embodied  in  the  speech,  must  be  polished  away,  that 
the  indwelling  life  may  manifest  itself. 

What,  then  (for  now  we  must  come  to  the  practical), 
is  the  kind  of  thing  to  be  polished  away  in  order  that 
the  hidden  may  be  revealed  ? 

All  words  that  can  be  dismissed  without  loss ;  for 
all  such  more  or  less  obscure  the  meaning  upon  which 
they  gather.  The  first  step  towards  the  polishing  of 
most  styles  is  to  strike  out — polish  off— the  useless 
words  and  phrases.  It  is  wonderful  with  how  many 
fewer  words  most  things  could  be  said  that  are  ^aid  ; 
while  the  degree  of  certainty  and  rapidity  with  which 
an  idea  is  conveyed  would  generally  be  found  to  be  in 
an  inverse  ratio  to  the  number  of  words  employed. 

All  ornaments  so  called — the  nose  and  lip  jewels  of 
fityle — ^the  tattooing  of  the  speech ;  all  similes  that, 
although  true,  give  no  additional  insight  into  the 
meaning ;  everything  that  is  only  pretty  and  not  beau- 
tiful ;  all  mere  sparkle  as  of  jewels  that  lose  their  own 


OK   POLISH.  187 

beauty  by  being  set  in  the  grandeur  of  statues  or  the 
dignity  of  monumental  stone,  must  be  ruthlessly 
polished  away. 

All  utterances  which,  however  they  may  add  to  the 
amount  of  thought,  distract  the  mind,  and  confuse  its 
observation  of  the  main  idea,  the  essence  or  life  of  the 
book  or  paper,  must  be  diligently  refused.  In  the 
manuscript  of  Comus  there  exists,  cancelled  but 
legible,  a  passage  of  which  I  have  the  best  authority  for 
saying  that  it  would  have  made  the  poetic  fame  of  any 
writer.  But  the  grand  old  self- denier  struck  it  out  of 
the  opening  speech  because  that  would  be  more  polished 
without  it — because  the  Attendant  Spirit  would  say 
more  immediately  and  exclusively,  and  therefore  more 
completely,  what  he  had  to  say,  without  it. — All  this 
applies  much  more  widely  and  deeply  in  the  region  of 
art ;  but  I  am  at  present  dealing  with  the  surface  of 
style,  not  with  the  round  of  result. 

I  have  one  instance  at  hand,  however,  belonging  to 
this  region,  than  which  I  could  scarcely  produce  a  more 
apt  illustration  of  my  thesis.  One  of  the  greatest  of 
living  painters,  walking  with  a  friend  through  the  late 
Exhibition  of  Art-Treasures  at  Manchester,  came  upon 
Albert  Diirer's  Melancholia,  After  looking  at  it  for  a 
moment,  he  told  his  friend  that  now  for  the  first  time 
he  understood  it,  and  proceeded  to  set  forth  what  he 
saw  in  it.  It  was  a  very  early  impression,  and  the 
delicacy  of  the  lines  was  so  much  the  greater.  He  had 
never  seen  such  a  perfect  impression  before,  and  had 
never  perceived  the  intent  and  scope  of  the  engraving. 
The  mere  lemoyal  of  accidental  thickness  and  furriness 


188  O-N^    POLISH. 

in  the  lines  of  the  drawing  enabled  him  to  see  into  the 
meaning  of  that  wonderful  production.  The  polish 
brought  it  to  the  surface.  Or,  what  amounts  to  the 
same  thing  for  my  argument,  the  duUing  of  the  surface 
had  concealed  it  even  from  his  experienced  eyes. 

In  fine,  and  more  generally,  all  cause  whatever  of 
obscurity  must  be  polished  away.  There  may  lie  in 
the  matter  itself  a  darkness  of  colour  and  texture  which 
no  amount  of  polishing  can  render  clear  or  even  vivid ; 
the  thoughts  themselves  may  be  hard  to  think,  and 
difficulty  must  not  be  confounded  with  obscurity.  The 
former  belongs  to  the  thoughts  themselves  ;  the  latter 
to  the  mode  of  their  embodiment.  AU  cause  of 
obscurity  in  this  must,  I  say,  be  removed.  Such  may 
lie  even  in  the  region  of  grammar,  or  in  the  mere 
arrangement  of  a  sentence.  And  while,  as  I  have  said, 
no  ornament  is  to  be  allowed,  so  all  roughnesses,  which 
irritate  the  mental  ear,  and  so  far  incapacitate  it  for 
receiving  a  true  impression  of  the  meaning  from  the 
words,  must  be  carefuUy  reduced.  For  the  true  music 
of  a  sentence,  belonging  as  it  does  to  the  essence  of  the 
thought  itself,  is  the  herald  which  goes  before  to  pre- 
pare the  mind  for  the  following  thouglit,  calming  the 
surface  of  the  intellect  to  a  mirror-like  reflection  of  tlie 
image  about  to  fall  upon  it.  But  syllables  that  hang- 
heavy  on  the  tongue  and  grate  harsh  upon  the  ear  are 
the  trumpet  of  discord  rousing  to  unconscious  opposition 
and  conscious  rejection. 

And  now  the  consideration  of  the  Polish  of  Manners 
will  lead  us  to  some  yet  more  important  reflections. 
Here  again  I  must  admit  that  the  ordinary  use  of  the 


ON   POLISH.  189 

phrase  is  analogous  to  that  of  the  preceding ;  hut  its 
relations  lead  us  deep  into  realities.  Eor  as  diamond 
alone  can  polish  diamond,  so  men  alone  can  polish 
men ;  and  hence  it  is  that  it  was  first  hy  living  in  a 
city  (ttoAis,  iwlis)  that  men — 

"rubbed  each  other's  angles  down/* 

and  hecame  ijolished.  And  while  a  certain  amount  of 
ease  with  regard  to  ourselves  and  of  consideration  with 
regard  to  others  is  everywhere  necessary  to  a  man's 
I-assing  as  a  gentleman — all  unevenness  of  behaviour 
resulting  either  from  shyness  or  self-consciousness  (in 
the  shape  of  awkwardness),  or  from  overweening  or 
selfishness  (in  the  shape  of  rudeness),  having  to  be 
polished  away — true  human  polish  must  go  further  than 
this.  Its  respects  are  not  confined  to  the  manners  of 
the  ball-room  or  the  dinner-table,  of  the  club  or  the 
exchange,  but  wherever  a  man  may  rejoice  with  them 
that  rejoice  or  weep  with  them  that  weep,  he  must 
remain  one  and  the  same,  as  polished  to  the  tiller  of 
the  soil  as  to  the  leader  of  the  fashion. 

But  how  will  the  figure  of  material  polish  aid  us  any 
further  1  How  can  it  be  said  that  Polish  of  Manners 
is  a  revelation  of  that  which  is  within,  a  calling  up  to 
the  surface  of  the  hidden  loveliness  of  the  material  *? 
For  do  we  not  know  that  courtesy  may  cover  contempt ; 
that  smiles  themselves  may  hide  hate ;  that  one  who 
will  place  you  at  his  right  hand  when  in  want  of  your 
uif erior  aid,  may  scarce  acknowledge  your  presence  when 
his  necessity  has  gone  by  %  And  how  then  can  polished 
manners  be  a  revelation  of  what  is  within  ?    Are  they 


190  ON    POLISH. 

not  the  result  of  putting  on  rather  than  of  taking  off  t 
Are  they  not  paint  and  varnish  rather  than  polish  1 

I  must  yield  the  answer  to  each  of  these  questions ; 
protesting,  however,  that  with  such  polish  I  have 
nothing  to  do ;  for  these  manners  are  confessedly  false. 
But  even  where  least  able  to  mislead,  they  are,  with 
corresponding  courtesy,  accepted  as  outward  signs  of  an 
inward  grace.  Hence  even  such,  by  the  nature  of  their 
falsehood,  support  my  position.  For  in  what  forms  are 
the  colours  of  the  paint  laid  upon  the  surface  of  the 
material  ?  Is  it  not  in  as  near  imitations  of  the  real 
right  human  feelings  about  oneself  and  others  as  the 
necessarily  imperfect  knowledge  of  such  an  artist  can 
produce  ?  He  will  not  encounter  the  labour  of  polish- 
ing, for  he  does  not  believe  in  the  divine  depths  of  his 
own  nature :  he  paints,  and  calls  the  varnish  polish. 

"  But  why  talk  of  polish  with  reference  to  such  a 
character,  seeing  that  no  amount  of  polishing  can  bring 
to  the  surface  what  is  not  there?  No  polishing  of 
sandstone  will  reveal  the  mottling  of  marble.  For  it  is 
sandstone,  crumbling  and  gritty—  not  noble  in  any  way." 

Is  it  so  then  ?  Can  such  be  the  real  nature  of  the 
man  1  And  can  polish  reach  nothing  deeper  in  him 
than  such  1  May  not  this  selfishness  be  polished  away, 
revealing  true  colour  and  harmony  beneath?  Was  not 
the  man  made  in  the  image  of  God  ?  Or,  if  you  say 
that  man  lost  that  image,  did  not  a  new  process  of 
creation  begin  from  the  point  of  that  loss,  a  process  of 
re-creation  in  him  in  whom  aU  shall  be  made  alive, 
which,  although  so  far  from  being  completed  yet,  can 
never  be  checked  1     If  we  cut  away  deep  enough  at  the 


ON   POLISH.  191 

rough  block  of  our  nature,  shall  we  not  arrive  at  some 

]  ikeness  of  that  true  man  who,  the  apostle  says,  dwells 
in  us — the  hope  of  glory  1  He  informs  us — that  is, 
forms  us  from  within. 

Dr.  Donne  (who  knew  less  than  any  other  writer  in 
the  English  language  what  Polish  of  Style  means) 
recognizes  this  divine  polishing  to  the  fulL  He  says  in 
a  poem  called  ''  The  Cross  :" — 

As  perchance  carvers  do  not  faces  make, 
But  that  away,  which  hid  them  there,  do  take. 
Let  Crosses  so  take  what  hid  Christ  in  thee, 
And  be  his  Image,  or  not  his,  but  He. 

This  is  no  doubt  a  higher  figure  than  that  of  polish, 
but  it  is  of  the  same  kind,  revealing  the  same  truth. 
It  recognizes  the  fact  that  the  divine  nature  lies 
at  the  root  of  the  human  nature,  and  that  the  polish 
which  lets  that  spiritual  nature  shine  out  in  the 
simplicity  of  heavenly  childhood,  is  the  true  Polish 
of  Manners  of  which  all  merely  social  refinements  are 
a  poor  imitation. — Whence  Coleridge  says  that  nothing 
but  religion  can  make  a  man  a  gentleman. — And  when 
these  harmonies  of  our  nature  come  to  the  surface,  we 
shall  be  indeed  "  lively  stones,"  fit  for  building  into 
the  great  temple  of  the  universe,  and  echoing  the 
music  of  creation.  Dr.  Donne  recognizes,  besides,  the 
notable  fact  that  crosses  or  afflictions  are  the  polishing 
powers  by  means  of  which  the  beautiful  realities  of 
human  nature  are  brought  to  the  surface.  One  can  tell 
at  once  by  the  peculiar  loveliness  of  certain  persons 
that  they  have  suffered. 


192  ON   POLISH. 

But,  to  look  for  a  moment  less  profoundly  into  the 
matter,  liave  we  not  known  those  whose  best  never 
could  get  to  the  surface  just  from  the  lack  of  polish  ? 
—persons  who,  if  they  could  only  reveal  the  kindness 
of  their  nature,  would  make  men  believe  in  human 
nature,  but  in  whom  some  roughness  of  awkwardness  or 
of  shyness  prevents  the  true  self  from  appearing? 
Even  the  dread  of  seeming  to  claim  a  good  deed  or  to 
patronize  a  fellow-man  will  sometimes  spoil  the  last 
touch  of  tenderness  which  would  have  been  the  final 
polish  of  the  act  of  giving,  and  would  have  revealed 
infinite  depths  of  human  devotion.  For  let  the  truth 
out,  and  it  will  be  seen  to  be  true. 

Simplicity  is  the  end  of  all  Polish,  as  of  all  Art, 
Culture,  Morals,  Eeligion,  and  Life.  The  Lord  our 
Grod  is  one  Lord,  and  we  and  our  brothers  and  sisters 
are  one  Humanity,  one  Body  of  the  Head. 

Now  to  the  practical ;  what  are  we  to  do  for  the 
polish  of  our  manners  *? 

Just  what  I  have  said  we  must  do  for  the  polish  of 
our  style.  Take  off;  do  not  put  on.  Polish  away  this 
rudeness,  that  awkwardness.  Correct  everything  self- 
assertive,  which  includes  nine  tenths  of  all  vulgarity. 
Imitate  no  one's  behaviour ;  that  is  to  paint.  Do  not 
think  about  yourself ;  that  is  to  varnish.  Put  what 
is  wrong  right,  and  what  is  in  you  will  show  itself  in 
harmonious  behaviour. 

But  no  one  can  go  far  in  this  track  without  dis- 
covering that  true  polish  reaches  much  deeper ;  that 
the  outward  exists  but  for  the  sake  of  the  inward ;  and 
that  the  manners,  as  they  depend  on  the  morals,  must 


ON  POLISH.  193 

be  forgotten  in  the  morals  of  whicli  they  are  but  the 
revelation.  Look  at  the  high-shouldered,  ungainly 
child  in  the  corner :  his  mother  tells  him  to  go  to  his 
book,  and  he  wants  to  go  to  his  play.  Regard  the 
swollen  lips,  the  skin  tightened  over  the  nose,  the  dis- 
turtion  of  his  shape,  the  angularity  of  his  whole 
appearance.  Yet  he  is  not  an  awkward  child  by 
nature.  Look  at  him  again  the  moment  after  he  has 
given  in  and  kissed  his  mother.  His  shoulders  have 
dropped  to  their  place;  his  limbs  are  free  from  the 
fetters  that  boimd  them ;  his  motions  are  graceful,  and 
the  one  blends  harmoniously  with  the  other.  He  is 
no  longer  thinking  of  himself.  He  has  given  up  his 
own  way.  The  true  childhood  comes  to  the  surface, 
and  you  see  what  the  boy  is  meant  to  be  always. 
Look  at  the  jerkiness  of  the  conceited  man.  Look  at 
the  quiet  fluency  of  motion  in  the  modest  man.  Look 
how  anger  itself  which  forgets  self,  which  is  imhating 
and  righteous,  will  elevate  the  carriage  and  ennoble  the 
movements. 

But  how  far  can  the  same  rule  of  omission  or  re/ec- 
tion  be  applied  with  safety  to  this  deeper  character — 
the  manners  of  the  spirit  ? 

It  seems  to  me  that  in  morals  too  the  main  thing  is 
to  avoid  doing  wrong ;  for  then  the  active  spirit  of  life 
in  us  will  drive  us  on  to  the  right.  But  on  such  a 
momentous  question  I  would  not  be  dogmatic.  Only 
as  far  as  regards  the  feelings  I  would  say  :  it  is  of  no 
use  to  try  to  make  ourselves  feel  thus  or  thus.  Let  us 
tight  with  our  wrong  feelings ;  let  us  polish  away  the 
rough  ugly  distortions  of  feeling.    Then  the  real  and 


194  ON"   POLISH. 

the  good  will  come  of  themselves.  Or  rather,  to  keep 
to  my  figure,  they  will  then  show  themselves  of  them- 
selves as  the  natural  home-produce,  the  indwelling 
facts  of  our  deepest — that  is,  our  divine  nature. 

Here  I  find  that  I  am  sinking  through  my  subject 
into  another  and  deeper— a  truth,  namely,  which 
should,  however,  he  the  foundation  of  all  our  building, 
the  background  of  all  our  representations :  that  Life  is 
at  work  in  us — the  sacred  Spirit  of  Q-od  travailing  in 
us.  That  Spirit  has  gained  one  end  of  his  labour — at 
which  he  can  begin  to  do  yet  more  for  us — when  he 
has  brought  us  to  beg  for  the  help  which  he  has  been 
giving  us  all  the  time. 

I  have  been  regarding  infinite  things  through  the 
medium  of  one  limited  figure,  knowing  that  figures 
with  all  their  suggestions  and  relations  could  not  reveal 
them  utterly.  But  so  far  as  they  go,  these  thoughts 
raised  by  the  word  Polish  and  its  figurative  uses  appear 
to  me  to  be  most  true. 


BROWNING'S  ^'CHRISTMAS  EVE." 
OETHE  says  :— 

"  Poems  are  painted  window  panes. 
If  one  looks  from  the  square  into  the  chnroh. 
Dusk  and  dimness  are  his  gains — 
Sir  Philistine  is  left  in  the  lurch  ! 
The  sight,  so  seen,  may  well  enrage  him. 
Nor  anything  henceforth  assuage  him. 

**  But  come  just  inside  what  conceals  | 
Cross  the  holy  threshold  quite — 
All  at  once  'tis  rainbow-bright, 
Device  and  story  flash  to  light, 
A  gracious  splendour  truth  reveals. 
This  to  God's  children  is  full  measure, 
It  edifies  and  gives  you  pleasure !  " 

This  is  true  concerning  every  form  in  whicli  truth  is 
embodied,  whether  it  be  sight  or  sound,  geometric 
diagram  or  scientiiic  formula.  Unintelligible,  it  may 
be  dismal  enough,  regarded  from  the  outside ;  prisma- 
tic in  its  revelation  of  truth  from  within.  Such  is  the 
world  itself,  as  beheld  by  the  speculative  eye  ;  a  thing 
of  disorder,  obscurity,  and  sadness  :  only  the  child-like 
heart,  to  which  the  door  into  the  divine  idea  is  thrown 
opt.n,  can  understand  somewhat  the  secret  of  the 
1  1868. 

o2 


196  BEOWNING's    "  CIIEISTMAS    EVE." 

Almighty.  In  human  things  it  is  particularly  true 
of  art,  in  which  the  fundamental  idea  seems  to  be  the 
revelation  of  the  true  through  the  beautiful  But  of 
all  the  arts  it  is  most  applicable  to  poetry  ;  for  the 
others  have  more  that  is  beautiful  on  the  outside  ;  can 
give  pleasure  to  the  senses  by  the  form  of  the  marble, 
the  hues  of  the  paintiag,  or  the  sweet  sounds  of  the 
music,  although  the  heail}  may  never  perceive  the 
meaning  that  lies  within.  But  poetry,  except  its 
rhythmic  melody,  and  its  scattered  gleams  of  material 
imagery,  for  which  few  care  that  love  it  not  for  its 
own  sake,  has  no  attraction  on  the  outside  to  entice 
the  passer  to  enter  and  partake  of  its  trutL  It  is 
inwards  that  its  colours  shine,  within  that  its  forms 
move,  and  the  sound  of  its  holy  organ  cannot  be  heard 
from  without. 

Now,  if  one  has  been  able  to  reach  the  heart  of  a 
poem,  answering  to  Goethe's  parabolic  description ;  or 
even  to  discover  a  loop-hole,  through  which,  from  an 
opposite  point,  the  glories  of  its  stained  windows  are 
visible ;  it  is  well  that  he  should  seek  to  make  others 
partakers  in  his  pleasure  and  profit.  Some  who  might 
not  find  out  for  themselves,  would  yet  be  evermore 
grateful  to  him  who  led  them  to  tne  point  of  vision. 

I  Surely  if  a  man  would  help  his  fellow-men,  he  can  do 
so  far  more  effectually  by  exhibiting  truth  than  exposing 
error,  by  unveiling  beauty  than  by  a  critical  dissection 
of  deformity.  From  the  very  nature  of  the  things  it 
must  be  so.  Let  the  true  and  good  destroy  their 
opposites.     It  is  only  by  the  good  and  beautiful  that 


browning's    "  CHEISTMAS    EVE."  197 

tlie  evil  and  ugly  are  known     It  is  the  light  that 
makes  manifest. 

The  poem  "  Christmas  Eve,"  by  Robert  Browning, 
with  the  accompanying  poem  "  Easter  Day,"  seems  not 
to  have  attracted  fliuch  notice  from  the  readers  of 
poetry,  although  highly  prized  by  a  few.  This  is, 
perhaps,  to  be  attributed,  in  a  great  measure,  to  what 
many  would  call  a  considerable  degree  of  obscurity. 
But  obscurity  is  the  appearance  which  to  a  first  glance 
may  be  presented  either  by  profundity  or  carelessness 
of  thought.  To  some,  obscurity  itself  is  attractive, 
from  the  hope  that  worthiness  is  the  cause  of  it.  To 
apply  a  test  similar  to  that  by  which  Pascal  tries  the 
Koran  and  the  Scriptui*es :  what  is  the  character  of 
those  portions,  the  meaning  of  which  is  plain  ?  Are 
they  wise  or  foolish  1  If  the  former,  the  presumption 
is  that  the  obscurity  of  other  parts  is  caused  not  by 
opacity,  but  profundity.  But  some  will  object,  not- 
withstanding, that  a  writer  ought  to  make  himself 
plain  to  his  readers ;  nay,  that  if  he  has  a  clear  idea 
himself,  he  must  be  able  to  express  that  idea  clearly. 

■  But  for  communion  of  thought,  two  minds,  not  one, 
are  necessary.  The  fault  may  lie  in  him  that  receives 
or  in  him  that  gives,  or  it  may  be  in  neither.  For 
how  can  the  result  of  much  thought,  the  idea  which 
for  months  has  been  shaping  itself  in  the  mind  of  one 
man,  be  at  once  received  by  another  mind  to  which  it 

ji  comes  a  stranger  and  unexpected  1     The  reader  has  no 
right  to  complain  of  so  caused  obscurity.     Nor  is  that  I 
form  of  expression,  which  is  most  easily  understood  at  I 
first  sight,  necessarily  the  best     It  will  not,  therefore, 


198  BBOWNING*S    "  CHRISTMAS    EVE.^' 

continue  to  move  ;  nor  will  it  gather  force  and  influence 

with  more  intimate  acquaintance.  Here  Goethe's  little 
parable,  as  he  calls  it,  is  peculiarly  applicable.  But, 
indeed,  if  after  all  a  writer  is  obscure,  the  man  who 
has  spent  most  labour  in  seeking  to  enter  into  his 
thoughts,  will  be  the  least  likely  to  complain  of  his 
obscurity ;  and  they  who  have  the  least  difficulty  in 
understanding  a  writer,  are  frequently  those  who 
understand  him  the  least. 

To  those  to  whom  the  religion  of  Christ  has  been 
the  law  of  liberty ;  who  by  that  door  have  entered  into 
the  universe  of  God,  and  have  begun  to  feel  a  growing 
delight  in  all  the  manifestations  of  God,  it  is  cause  of 
much  joy  to  find  that,  whatever  may  be  the  position 
taken  by  men  of  science,  or  by  those  in  whom  the 
intellect  predominates,  with  regard  to  the  Christian 
religion,  men  of  genius,  at  least,  in  virtue  of  what  is 
child-like  in  their  nature,  are,  in  the  present  time, 
plainly  manifesting  deep  devotion  to  Christ.  There 
are  exceptions,  certainly  ;  but  even  in  those,  there  are 
symptoms  of  feelings  which,  one  can  hardly  help 
thinking,  tend  towards  him,  and  will  one  day  flame 
forth  in  conscious  worship.  A  mind  that  recognizes 
any  of  the  multitudinous  meanings  of  the  revelation  of 
God,  in  the  world  of  sounds,  and  forms,  and  colours, 
cannot  be  blind  to  the  higher  manifestation  of  God  in 
common  humanity ;  nqr  to  him  in  whom  is  hid  the 
key  to  the  whole,  the  First-bom  of  the  creation  of 
God,  in  whose  heart  lies,  as  yet  but  partially  developed, 
the  kingdom  of  heaven,  which  is  the  redemption  of 
the  earth.    The  mind  that  delights  in  that  which  is 


CHRISTMAS   EVE."  199 

lofty  and  great,  which  feels  there  is  something  higher 
than  self,  will  undoubtedly  be  drawn  towards  Christ ; 
and  they,  who  at  first  looked  on  him  as  a  great 
prophet,  came  at  length  to  perceive  that  he  Mas  the 
radiation  of  the  Father's  glory,  the  likeness  of  his 
unseen  being. 

A  description  of  the  poem  may,  perhaps,  both  in- 
duce to  the  reading  of  it,  and  contribute  to  its  easier 
comprehension  while  being  perused.  On  a  stormy 
Christmas  Eve,  the  poet,  or  rather  the  seer  (for  the 
whole  must  be  regarded  as  a  poetic  vision),  is  com- 
pelled to  take  refuge  in  the  "  lath  and  plaster  entry  " 
of  a  little  chapel,  belonging  to  a  congregation  of  Cal- 
vinistic  Methodists,  who  are  at  the  time  assembling  for 
worship.  Wonderful  in  its  reality  is  the  description 
of  various  of  the  flock  that  pass  him  as  they  enter  the 
chapel,  from 

"  the  raany-tattered 

Little  old-fiwjed,  peaking  sister-turned-mother 

Of  the  sickly  babe  she  tried  to  smother 

Somehow  up,  with  its  spotted  face, 

From  the  cold,  on  her  breast,  the  one  warm  place  :** 

to  the  "  shoemaker's  lad ;"  whom  he  follows,  determined 
not  to  endure  the  inquisition  of  their  looks  any  longer, 
into  the  chapel.  The  humour  of  the  whole  scene  within 
is  excellent.  The  stifling  closeness,  both  of  the  atmo- 
sphere and  of  the  sermon,  the  wonderful  content  of  the 
audience,  the  "  old  fat  woman,"  who 

"  purred  with  pleasure. 
And  thumb  round  thumb  went  twirling  faster. 
While  she,  to  his  periods  keeping  measure, 
Maternally  devoured  the  pastor }" 


200  BEOWKING's   "CHRISTMAS  EVE,'* 

are  represented  by  a  few  rapid  touches  that  bring  certain 
points  of  the  reality  almost  unpleasantly  near.  At 
length,  unable  to  endure  it  longer,  he  rushes  out  into 
the  air.  Objection  may,  probably,  be  made  to  »the 
mingling  of  the  humorous,  even  the  ridiculous,  with 
the  serious  ;  at  least,  in  a  work  of  art  .like  this,  where 
they  must  be  brought  into  such  close  proximity.  But 
are  not  these  things  as  closely  connected  in  the  world 
as  they  can  be  in  any  representation  of  it  ?  Surely 
there  are  few  who  have  never  had  occasion  to  attempt 
to  reconcile  the  thought  of  the  two  in  their  own  minds. 
Nor  can  there  be  anything  human  that  is  not,  in  some 
connexion  or  other,  admissible  into  art.  The  widest 
idea  of  art  must  comprehend  aU  things.  A  work  of 
this  kind  must,  like  God's  world,  in  which  he  sends 
rain  on  the  just  and  on  the  unjust,  be  taken  as  a  whole 
and  in  regard  to  its  design.  The  requisition  is,  that 
everything  introduced  have  a  relation  to  the  adjacent 
parts  and  to  the  whole  suitable  to  the  design.  Here 
the  thing  is  real,  is  true,  is  human ;  a  thing  to  be 
thought  about.  It  has  its  place  amongst  other  pheno- 
mena, with  which,  however  apparently  incongruous, 
it  is  yet  vitally  connected  within. 

A  coolness  and  delight  visit  us,  on  turning  over  the 
page  and  commencing  to  read  the  description  of  sky, 
and  moon,  and  clouds,  which  greet  him  outside  the 
chapel.  It  is  as  a  vision  of  the  vision-bearing  world 
itself,  in  one  of  its  fine,  though  not,  at  first,  one  of  its 
rarest  moods.  And  here  a  short  digression  to  notice 
like  feelings  in  unlike  dresses,  one  thought  differently 
expressed  will,  perhaps,  be  pardoned.    The  moon  is 


BKOWNIKg's    •■  <  HiasTMAS    EVE."  201 

prevented  from  shining  out  by  the  **  blocks  "  of  dond 
"  built  up  in  the  west :" — 

**  And  the  empty  other  half  of  the  sky 
Seemed  in  its  silence  as  if  it  knew 
What,  any  moment,  might  look  throngh 
A  chance-gap  in  that  fortress  massy.'* 

Old  Henry  Yaughan  says  of  the  "  Dawning  :"— 

"  The  whole  Creation  shakes  oflF  night, 
And  for  thy  shadow  looks  the  Light } 
Stars  now  vanish  without  number, 
Sleepie  Planets  set  and  slumber, 
The  pursie  Clouds  disband  and  scatter. 
All  expect  some  sudden  matter." 

Calmness  settles  down  on  his  mind.  He  walks  on, 
thinking  of  the  scene  he  had  left,  and  the  sermon  he 
had  heard.  In  the  latter  he  sees  the  good  and  the  bad 
intimately  mingled;  and  is  convinced  that  the  chief 
benefit  derived  from  it  is  a  reproducing  of  former  im- 
pressions. The  thought  crosses  him,  in  how  many 
places  and  how  many  different  forms  the  same  thing 
takes  place,  "a  convincing  "  of  the  "convinced  ;"  and 
he  rejoices  in  the  contrast  which  his  church  presents 
to  these  ;  for  in  the  church  of  ITature  his  love  to  God, 
assurance  of  God's  love  to  him,  and  confidence  in  the 
design  of  God  regarding  him,  commenced.  While 
exulting  in  God  and  the  knowledge  of  Him  to  be 
attained  hereafter,  he  is  favoured  with  a  sight  of  a 
glorious  moon-rain  1  ow,  which  elevates  his  worship  to 
ecstasy.     During  which — 

"  All  at  once  I  looked  up  with  terror^* 
He  was  there. 


He  himself  with  His  human  air, 

On  the  narrow  pathway,  just  before : 

I  saw  the  back  of  Him,  no  more — 

He  had  left  the  chapel,  then,  as  I. 

I  forgot  all  about  the  sky. 

No  face  :  only  the  sight 

Of  a  s weepy  garment,  vast  and  white, 

With  a  hem  that  I  could  recognize. 

I  felt  terror,  no  surprise  : 

My  mind  filled  with  the  cataract, 

At  one  bound,  of  the  mighty  fact. 

I  remembered,  He  did  say 

Doubtless,  that,  to  this  world's  end, 

Where  two  or  three  should  meet  and  pray. 

He  would  be  in  the  midst,  their  friend; 

Certainly  He  was  there  with  them. 

And  my  pulses  leaped  for  joy 

Of  the  golden  thought  without  alloy, 

That  I  saw  His  very  vesture's  hem. 

Then  rushed  the  blood  back,  cold  and  clear, 

Witli  a  fresh  enhancing  shiver  of  fear." 

Praying  for  forgiveness  wherein  he  has  sinned,  and 
prostrate  in  adoration  before  the  form  of  Christ,  he  is 
"  caught  up  in  the  whirl  and  drift  "  of  his  vesture,  and 
carried  along  with  him  over  the  earth. 

Stopping  at  length  at  the  entrance  of  St.  Peter's  in 
Rome,  he  remains  outside,  while  the  form  disappears 
within.  He  is  able,  however,  to  see  all  that  goes  on 
in  the  crowded,  hushed  interior.  It  is  high  mass.  He 
has  been  carried  at  once  from  the  little  chapel  to  the 
opposite  aesthetic  pole.     From  the  entry,  where — 

*'  The  flame  of  the  single  tallow  candle 
In  the  cracked  square  lanthom  I  stood  under 
Shot  its  blue  lip  at  me,'* 


"CHRISTMAS   EVb/'  203 

to— 

**  This  miraonlous  dome  of  God — 
This  colonnade 
With  arms  wide  open  to  embrace 
The  entry  of  the  human  race 
To  the  breast  of  ...  .  what  is  it,  yon  building, 
Ablaze  in  front,  all  paint  and  gilding, 
With  marble  for  brick,  and  stones  of  price 
For  garniture  of  the  edifice  ?  " 

to  "  those  fountains  "— 

**  Growing  up  eternally 
Each  to  a  musical  water-tree, 
Whose  blossoms  drop,  a  glittering  boon, 
Before  my  eyes,  in  the  light  of  the  moon, 
To  the  granite  la  vers  underneath ;" 

from  the  singing  of  the  chapel  to  the  organ  self- 
restrained,  that  "  holds  his  breath  and  grovels  latent," 
while  expecting  the  elevation  of  the  Host.  Christ  is 
within  ;  he  is  left  without.  Eeflecting  on  the  matter, 
he  thinks  his  Lord  would  not  require  him  to  go  in, 
though  he  himself  entered,  because  there  was  a  way  to 
reach  him  there.  By-and-by,  however,  his  heart  awakes 
and  declares  that  Love  goes  beyond  error  with  them, 
and  if  the  Intellect  be  kept  down,  yet  Love  is  the 
oppressor ;  so  next  time  he  resoWes  to  enter  and  praise 
along  with  them.  The  passage  commencing,  "Oh, 
love  of  those  first  Christian  days  ! "  describing  Love's 
victory  over  Intellect,  is  very  fine. 

Again  he  is  caught  up  and  carried  along  as  before. 
This  time  halt  is  made  at  the  door  of  a  college  in  a 
Grerman  town,  in  which  the  class-room  of  one  of  the 
professors  is  open  for  lecture  this  Christmas  Eve.     It 


204  browning's  "  chrtstmas  eve." 

is,  intellectually  considered,  the  opposite  pole  to  both 
the  Methodist  chapel  and  the  Eoman  Basilica.  The 
poet  enters,  fearful  of  losing  the  society  of  "  any  that 
call  themselves  his  friends."  He  describes  the  assem- 
bled company,  and  the  entrance  of  '*  the  hawk-nosed, 
high-cheek-boned  professor,"  of  part  of  whose  Christmas 
Eve's  discourse  he  proceeds  to  give  the  substance.  The 
professor  takes  it  for  granted  that  "  plainly  no  such 
life  was  liveable,"  aiid  goes  on  to  inquire  what  expla- 
nation of  the  phenomena  of  the  life  of  Christ  it  were 
best  to  adopt.  Not  that  it  mattered  much,  "  so  the 
idea  be  left  the  same."  Taking  the  popular  story,  fo]; 
convenience  sake,  and  separating  all  extraneous  matter 
from  it,  he  found  that  Christ  was  simply  a  good  man, 
with  an  honest,  true  heart;  whose  disciples  thought 
him  divine;  and  whose  doctrine,  though  quite  mis- 
taken by  those  who  received  and  published  it,  "  had 
yet  a  meaning  quite  as  respectable."  Here  the  poet 
takes  advantage  of  a  pause  to  leave  him ;  reflecting  that 
though  the  air  may  be  poisoned  by  the  sects,  yet  here 
"the  critic  leaves  no  air  to  poison."  His  meditations 
and  arguments  following,  are  among  the  most  valuable 
passages  in  the  book.  The  professor,  notwithstanding 
the  idea  of  Christ  has  by  him  been  exhausted  of  all 
that  is  peculiar  to  it,  yet  recommends  him  to  the  vene- 
ration and  worship  of  his  hearers,  **  rather  than  all  who 
went  before  him,  and  all  who  ever  followed  after." 
But  why  ?  says  the  poet.     For  his  intellect, 

**  Which  tells  me  simply  what  was  told 
(If  mere  morality,  bereft 
Of  the  God  in  Christ,  be  all  that's  lofb) 
Slsewhere  by  voioes  manifold  f  " 


browning's    "  CIIIIIST.MAS    EVE."  205 

with  which  must  be  combined  the  fact  that  this  in- 
tellect of  his  did  not  save  him  from  making  the  "im- 
portant stumble,"  of  saying  that  he  and  God  were  one. 
"But  his  followers  misunderstood  him,"  says  the 
objector.  Perhaps  so ;  but  "  the  stumbling-block,  his 
speech,  who  laid  it  1 "  Well  then,  is  it  on  the  score 
of  his  goodness  that  he  should  rule  his  race  I 

"  You  pledge 
Your  fealty  to  such  rule  ?     What,  all — • 
From  Heavenly  John  and  Attic  Paul, 
And  that  brave  weather-battered  Peter, 
Whose  stout  faith  only  stood  completer 
For  buffets,  sinning  to  be  pardoned, 
As  the  more  his  hands  hauled  nets,  they  hardened- 
All,  down  to  you,  the  man  of  men, 
Professing  here  at  Gottingen, 
Compose  Christ's  flock  !     So,  you  and  I 
Are  sheep  of  a  good  man  !     And  why  ?  " 

Did  Christ  invent  goodness?  or  did  he  only  demon- 
strate   that   of   wliich    the    common   conscience   was 

judge  i 

'*  I  would  decree 
Worship  for  such  mere  demonstration 
And  simple  work  of  nomenclature. 
Only  the  day  I  praised,  not  Nature, 
But  Harvey,  for  the  circulation.'* 

The  worst  man,  says  the  poet,  knows  more  than  the 
best  man  does.  God  in  Christ  appeared  to  men  to  help 
them  to  doj  to  awaken  the  life  within  them. 

**  Morality  to  the  uttermost, 
Supreme  in  Christ  as  we  all  confess, 
Why  need  we  prove  would  avail  no  jot 
To  make  Him  God,  if  God  he  were  not  f 


206  browning's  "Christmas  eve. 

What  is  the  point  where  Himself  lays  stress  P 

Does  the  precept  run,  '  Believe  in  good, 

In  justice,  truth,  now  understood 

For  the  first  time  ? ' — or,  '  Believe  in  Mb, 

Who  lived  and  died,  yet  essentially 

Am  Lord  of  life  '  ?     Whoever  can  take 

The  same  to  his  heart,  and  for  mere  lovers  sake 

Conceive  of  the  love, — that  man  obtains 

A  new  truth ;  no  conviction  gains 

Of  an  old  one  only,  made  intense 

By  a  fresh  appeal  to  his  faded  sense." 

In  this  lies  the  most  direct  practical  argument  with  re- 
gard to  what  is  commonly  called  the  Divinity  of  Christ. 
Plere  is  a  man  whom  those  that  magnify  him  the  least 
confess  to  be  a  good  man,  the  best  of  men.  He  says, 
"I  and  the  Father  are  one."  "Will  an  earnest  heart, 
.knowing  this,  be  likely  to  draw  back,  or  will  it  draw 
nearer  to  behold  the  great  sight?  Will  not  such  a 
heart  feel :  "A  good  man  like  this  would  not  have 
said  so,  were  it  not  so.  In  all  probability  the  great 
truth  of  God  lies  beliind  this  veil."  The  reality  of 
Christ's  nature  is  not  to  be  proved  by  argument.  He 
must  be  beheld.  The  manifestation  of  Him  must 
"gravitate  inwards"  on  the  soul.  It  is  by  looking 
that  one  can  know.  As  a  mathematical  theorem  is  to 
be  proved  only  by  the  demonstration  of  that  theorem 
itself,  not  by  talking  about  it ;  so  Christ  must  prove 
himself  to  the  human  soul  through  being  beheld.  The 
only  proof  of  Christ's  divinity  is  his  humanity.  Be- 
cause his  humanity  is  not  comprehended,  his.  divinity 
is  doubted  ;  and  while  the  former  is  uncomprehended, 
an  assent  to  the  latter  is  of  little  avail.     For  a  man  to 


207 

theorize  theologically  in  any  form,  while  he  has  not  so 
apprehended  Christ,  or  to  neglect  the  gazing  on  him 
for  the  attempt  to  substantiate  to  himself  any  form  of 
belief  respecting  him,  is  to  bring  on  himself,  in  a 
matter  of  divine  import,  such  errors  as  tlie  expounders 
of  nature  in  old  time  brought  on  themselves,  when 
they  speculated  on  what  a  thing  must  be,  instead  of 
observing  what  it  was  ;  this  must  he  having  for  its 
foundation  not  self-evident  truth,  but  notions  wliose 
chief  strength  lay  in  their  preconception.  There  are 
thoughts  and  feelings  that  cannot  be  called  up  in  the 
mind  by  any  power  of  will  or  force  of  imagination ; 
which,  being  spiritual,  must  arise  in  the  soul  when  in 
its  highest  spiritual  condition  ;  when  the  mind,  indeed, 
like  a  smooth  lake,  reflects  only  heavenly  images.  A 
steadfast  regarding  of  Him  will  produce  this  calm,  and 
His  will  be  the  heavenly  form  reflected  from  the  mental 
depth. 

But  to  return  to  the  poem.  The  fact  that  Christ 
remains  inside,  leads  the  poet  to  reflect,  in  the  spirit 
of  Him  who  found  all  the  good  in  men  he  could, 
neglecting  no  point  of  contact  which  presented  it- 
self, whether  there  was  anything  at  this  lecture  with 
which  he  could  sympathize  ;  and  he*  finds  that  the 
heart  of  the  professor  does  something  to  rescue  him 
from  the  error  of  his  brain.  In  his  brain,  even,  "  if 
Love's  dead  there,  it  has  left  a  ghost."  For  when  the 
natural  deduction  from  his  argument  would  be  that  our 
faith 

"  Be  swept  forthwith  to  its  natural  dust-hole, — 
He  bids  us,  when  we  least  expect  it, 


208  BEOWKING's    "  CHRISTMAS    EVE." 

Take  back  our  faitb— if  it  be  not  just  whole, 
Yet  a  pearl  indeed,  as  his  tests  affect  it, 
Which  fact  pays  the  damage  done  rewardingly, 
So,  prize  we  our  dust  and  ashes  accordingly ! " 

Love  as  well  as  learning  being  necessary  to  the 
understanding  of  the  New  Testament,  it  is  to  the  poet 
matter  of  regret  that  "  loveless  learning  "  should  leave 
its  proper  work,  and  make  such  havoc  in  that  which 
belongs  not  to  it.  But  while  he  sits  "  talking  with  his 
mind,"  his  mood  begins  to  degenerate  from  sympathy 
with  that  which  is  good  to  indifference  towards  all 
forms,  and  he  feels  inclined  to  rest  quietly  in  the  enjoy- 
ment of  his  own  religious  confidence,  and  trouble  him- 
self in  no  wise  about  the  faith  of  his  neighbours  ;  for 
doubtless  all  are  partakers  of  the  central  light,  though 
vai'iously  refracted  by  the  varied  translucency  of  the 
mental  prism  .... 

'*  'Twas  the  horrible  storm  began  afresh  I 
The  black  night  caught  me  in  his  mesh. 
Whirled  me  up,  and  flung  me  prone  ! 
I  was  left  on  the  college-step  aJone. 
I  looked,  and  far  there,  ever  fleeting 
Far,  far  away,  the  receding  gesture, 
And  looming  of  the  lessening  vesture, 
Swept  forward  from  my  stupid  hand, 
While  I  watched  my  foolish  heart  expand 
In  the  lazy  glow  of  benevolence 
O'er  the  various  modes  of  man's  belief. 
I  sprang  up  with  fear's  vehemence. 
— Needs  must  there  be  one  way,  our  chitf 
Best  way  of  worship :  let  me  strive 
To  find  it,  and  when  found,  contrive 
My  fellows  also  take  their  share. 
This  constitutes  my  earthly  care  t 
God's  is  above  it  and  diatmct  1 " 


browning's   "CHRISTMAS    EVE."  209 

The  symbolism  in  the  former  part  of  this  extract  is 
grand.  As  soon  as  he  ceases  to  look  practically  on  the 
phenomena  with  which  he  is  surrounded,  he  is  en- 
veloped in  storm  and  darkness,  and  sees  only  in  the 
far  distance  the  disappearing  skirt  of  his  Lord's  gar- 
ment. God's  care  is  over  all,  he  goes  on  to  say ;  I 
must  do  my  part.  If  I  look  speculatively  on  the 
world,  there  is  nothing  hut  dimness  and  mystery.  If 
I  look  practically  on  it, 

**  No  mere  mote's-breadth,  bnt  teems  immense 
With  witnessingg  of  Providence." 

And  whether  the  world  which  I  seek  to  help  censures 
or  praises  me — that  is  nothing  to  me.  My  life — how 
is  it  with  me  1 

**  Sonl  of  mine,  hadst  thou  caught  and  held 
By  the  hem  of  the  vesture  .... 
And  I  caught 
At  the  flying  robe,  and,  unrepelled, 
Was  lapped  again  in  its  folds  full-fraught 
With  warmth  and  wonder  and  delight, 
God's  mercy  being  infinite. 
And  scarce  had  the  words  escaped  my  tongue^ 
When,  at  a  passionate  bound,  I  sprung 
Out  of  the  wandering  world  of  rain, 
Into  the  little  chapel  again." 

Had  he  dreamed?  how  then  could  he  report  of  the 
sermon  and  the  preacher  1  of  which  and  of  whom  he 
proceeds  to  give  a  very  external  account  But  cor- 
recting himself — 

*'  Ha !    Is  Gk)d  mocked,  as  He  asks  P 
Shall  I  take  on  me  to  change  his  tasks. 
And  dare,  despatched  to  a  river-head 


21  0  BROWNIT^g'S    "  CHRISTMAS    EVE." 

For  a  simple  draught  of  the  element, 

Neglect  the  thing  for  which  He  sent, 

And  return  with  another  thing  instead  I 

Saying  .  .  .  .  '  Because  the  water  found 

Welling  up  from  underground, 

Is  mingled  with  the  taints  of  earth, 

While  Thou,  I  know,  dost  laugh  at  dearth, 

And  couldest,  at  a  word,  convulse 

The  world  with  the  leap  of  its  river-pulse, — 

Therefore  I  turned  from  the  oozings  muddy, 

And  bring  thee  a  chalice  I  found,  instead. 

See  the  brave  veins  in  the  breccia  ruddy ! 

One  would  suppose  that  the  marble  bled. 

What  matters  the  water  ?     A  hope  I  have  nursed. 

That  the  waterless  cup  will  quench  my  thirst.* 

— Better  have  knelt  at  the  poorest  stream 

That  trickles  in  pain  from  the  straitest  rift ! 

For  the  less  or  the  more  is  all  God's  gift, 

Who  blocks  up  or  breaks  wide  the  granite  seam. 

And  here,  is  there  water  or  not,  to  drink  ?  " 

He  comes  to  tlie  conclusion,  that  the  best  for  Mm  is 
that  mode  of  worship  which  partakes  the  least  of 
human  forms,  and  brings  him  nearest  to  the  spiritual ; 
and,  while  expressing  good  wishes  for  the  Pope  and 
the  professor — 

"  Meantime,  in  the  still  recurring  fear 
Lest  myself,  at  unawares,  be  found. 
While  attacking  the  choice  of  my  neighbours  round, 
Without  my  own  made — I  choose  here  !  " 

He  therefore  joins    heartily  in  the   hymn  which   is 
sung  by  the  congregation  of  the  little  chapel  at  the 
close  of  their  worship.     And  this  concludes  the  poem. 
What  is  the  central  point   from  which  this  poem 
can  be  regarded  %    It  does  not  seem  to  be  very  hard 


211 

to  find.  Novalis  has  said :  "  Die  Pliilo/^ophie  i?t 
eigentlich  Heimweh,  ein  Trieb  iiberall  zii  Hause  zu  sein." 
(Philosophy  is  really  home-sickness,  an  impulse  to  he 
at  home  everywhere.)  The  life  of  a  man  here,  if  life 
it  he,  and  not  the  vain  image  of  what  might  he  a  life, 
is  a  continual  attempt  to  find  his  place,  his  centre  of 
recipiency,  and  active  agency.  He  Avants  to  know 
where  he  is,  and  where  he  onght  to  be  and  can  be ; 
for,  rightly  considered,  the  position  a  man  ought  to 
occupy  is  tha  only  one  he  truly  can  occupy.  It  is  a 
climbing  and  striving  to  reach  that  point  of  vision 
where  the  multiplex  crossings  and  apparent  intertwist- 
ings  of  the  lines  of  fact  and  feeling  and  duty  shall 
manifest  themselves  as  a  regular  and  symmetrical 
design.  A  contradiction,  or  a  thing  unrelated,  is  foreign 
and  painful  to  him,  even  as  the  rocky  particle  in  the 
gelatinous  substance  of  the  oyster  ;  and,  like  the  latter, 
he  can  only  rid  himself  of  it  by  encasing  it  in  the  pearl- 
like enclosure  of  faitli ;  believing  that  hidden  there  lies 
the  necessity  for  a  higher  theory  of  the  universe  than 
has  yet  been  generated  in  his  souL  The  quest  for  this 
home-centre,  in  the  man  who  has  faith,  is  calm  and 
ceaseless  ;  in  the  man  whose  faith  is  weak,  it  is  stonny 
and  intermittent.  Unhappy  is  that  man,  of  necessity, 
whose  perceptions  are  keener  than  his  faith  is  strong. 
Everywhere  Nature  herself  is  pr.tting  strange  questious 
to  him ;  the  human  world  is  full  of  dismay  and  con- 
fusion; his  own  conscience  is  bewildered  by  contra- 
dictory appearances  ;  aU  which  may  well  happen  to  tlie 
man  whose  eye  is  not  yet  single,  whose  heart  is  not 
yet  pure.  He  is  not  at  home ;  his  soul  is  astray  amid 
p  2 


212  BROWNING  S    "  CHRISTMAS    EVE." 

people  of  a  strange  speech  and  a  stammering  tongue. 
Eut  the  faithful  man  is  led  onward ;  in  the  stillness 
that  his  confidence  produces  arise  the  bright  images  of 
truth ;  and  visions  of  God,  which  are  only  beheld  in 
solitary  places,  are  granted  to  his  souL 

**  0  struggling  with  the  darkness  all  the  night. 
And  visited  all  night  by  troops  of  stars !  " 

What  is  true  of  the  whole,  is  true  of  its  parts.  In 
all  the  relations  of  life,  in  all  the  parts  of  the  great 
whole  of  existence,  the  true  man  is  ever  seeking  his 
home.  This  poem  seems  to  show  us  such  a  quest. 
"  Here  I  am  in  the  midst  of  many  who  belong  to  the 
same  family.  They  differ  in  education,  in  habits,  in 
forms  of  thought ;  but  they  are  called  by  the  same 
name.  "What  position  with  regard  to  them  am  I  to 
assume  ?  I  am  a  Christian  ;  how  am  I  to  live  in  rela- 
tion to  Christians  1 "  Such  seems  to  be  something  like 
the  poet's  thought.  What  central  position  can  he  gain, 
which,  while  it  answers  best  the  necessities  of  his 
own  soul  with  regard  to  God,  will  enable  him  to  feel 
himself  connected  with  the  whole  Christian  world, 
and  to  sympathize  with  all ;  so  that  he  may  not  be 
alone,  but  one  of  the  whole.  Certainly  the  position 
necessary  for  both  requirements  is  one  and  the  same. 
He  that  is  isolated  from  his  brethren,  loses  one  of  the 
greatest  helps  to  draw  near  to  God.  Now,  in  this  time, 
which  is  so  peculiarly  transitional,  this  is  a  question  of 
no  little  import  for  all  who,  while  they  gladly  forsake 
old,  or  rather  modern^  theories,  for  what  is  to  them  a 
more  full  development  of  Christianity  as  well  as  a  le- 


BEOWXIXG's    "  CHETST^rAS    EVE."  213 

turn  to  the  fountain-head,  yet  seek  to  be  saved  from 
the  danger  of  losing  sympathy  with  those  who  are 
content  with  what  they  are  compelled  to  abandon. 
Seeing  much  in  the  common  modes  of  thought  and 
belief  that  is  inconsistent  with  Christianity,  and  even 
opposed  to  it,  they  yet  cannot  but  see  likewise  in  many 
of  them  a  power  of  spiritual  good;  which,  though 
not  dependent  on  the  peculiar  mode,  is  yet  enveloped, 
if  not  embodied,  in  that  mode. 

**Ask,  else,  these  ruins  of  humanity, 
This  flesh  worn  out  to  rags  and  tatters,  ^ 

This  soul  at  struggle  with  insanity, 
Who  thence  take  comfort,  can  I  doubt. 
Which  an  empire  gained,  were  a  loss  without." 

The  love  of  God  is  the  soul  of  Christianity.  Christ  is 
the  body  of  that  truth.  The  love  of  God  is  the 
creating  and  redeeming,  the  forming  and  satisfying 
power  of  the  universe.  The  love  of  God  is  that 
which  kills  evil  and  glorifies  goodness.  It  is  the 
safety  of  the  great  whole.  It  is  the  home -atmosphere 
of  all  life.  "WeU  does  the  poet  of  the  "Christmas 
Eve  "  say : — 

*'  The  loving  worm  within  its  clod, 
Were  diviner  than  a  loveless  God 
Amid  his  \n  orlds,  I  will  dare  to  say.'* 

Surely  then,  inasmuch  as  man  is  made  in  the  image  of 
God,  nothing  less  than  a  love  in  the  image  of  God's 
love,  all-embracing,  quietly  excusing,  heartily  com- 
mending, can  constitute  the  blessedness  of  man ;  a  love 


211  BROAVNING's    "CHRISTMAS    EVE." 

not  insGnsible  to  that  which  is  foreign  to  it,  "but  over- 
coming it  with  good.  "Where  man  loves  in  his  kind, 
even  as  God  loves  in  His  kind,  then  man  is  saved, 
then  he  has  reached  the  unseen  and  eternal.  But  if, 
besides  the  necessity  to  love  that  lies  in  a  man,  there 
be  likewise  in  the  man  whom  he  ought  to  love  some- 
thing in  common  with  him,  then  the  law  of  love  has 
increased  force.  If  that  point  of  sympathy  lies  at  the 
centre  of  the  being  of  each,  and  if  these  centres  are 
brought  into  contact,  then  the  circles  of  their  being 
will  be,  if  not  coincident,  yet  concentric.  We  must 
wait  patiently  for  the  completion  of  God's  great  har- 
mony, and  meantime  love  everywhere  and  as  we  can. 

Eut  the  great  lesson  which  this  poem  teaches,  and 
which  is  taught  more  directly  in  the  "  Easter  Day  ** 
(forming  part  of  the  same  volume),  is  that  the  busi- 
ness of  a  man's  life  is  to  be  a  Christian.  A  man  has 
to  do  with  God  first ;  in  Him  only  can  he  find  the 
unity  and  harmony  he  seeks.  To  be  one  with  Him  is 
to  be  at  the  centre  of  things.  K  one  acknowledges 
that  God  has  revealed  himself  in  Christ ;  that  God 
has  recognized  man  as  his  family,  by  appearing  among 
them  in  their  form ;  surely  that  very  acknowledgment 
carries  with  it  the  admission  that  man's  chief  con- 
cern is  with  this  revelation.  What  does  God  say  and 
mean,  teach  and  manifest,  herein]  If  this  world  is 
God's  making,  and  he  is  present  in  all  nature ;  if  he 
rules  all  things  and  is  present  in  all  history ;  if  the 
soul  of  man  is  in  his  image,  with  all  its  circles  of 
thought  and  multiplicity  of  forms  j  and  if  for  man  it 
be  not  enough  to  be  rooted  in  Grod,  but  he  must  like- 


CHEISTMAS    EVE."  -15 

wise  lay  hold  on  God ;  then  surely  no  question,  in 
whatever  direction,  can  be  truly  answered,  save  by  him 
who  stands  at  the  side  of  Christ.  The  doings  of  God 
cannot  be  understood,  save  by  him  who  has  the  mind 
of  Christ,  which  is  the  mind  of  God.  All  things  must 
1)0  strange  to  one  who  sympathizes  not  with  the 
thought  of  the  Maker,  who  understands  not  the  design 
of  the  Artist.  Where  is  he  to  begin?  What  light 
has  he  by  which  to  classify  ?  How  will  he  bring  order 
out  of  this  apparent  confusion,  when  the  order  is 
higher  than  his  thought ;  when  the  confusion  to  him 
is  caused  by  the  order's  being  greater  than  he  can 
com])rehend?  Because  he  stands  outside  and  not 
within,  he  sees  an  entangled  maze  of  forces,  where 
there  is  in  truth  an  intertwining  dance  of  harmony* 
There  is  for  no  one  any  solution  of  the  world's  mys- 
tery, or  of  any  part  of  its  mystery,  except  he  be  able 
to  say  with  our  poet : — 

**  I  have  looked  to  Thee  from  the  beginning, 
Straight  up  to  Thee  through  all  the  world. 
Which,  like  an  idle  scroll,  lay  furled 
To  nothingness  on  either  side : 
And  since  the  time  Thou  wast  descried. 
Spite  of  the  weak  heart,  so  have  I 
Lived  ever,  and  so  fain  would  die, 
Living  and  dying,  Thee  before  !  " 

Christianity  is  not  the  ornament,  or  even  complement, 
of  life ;  it  is  its  necessity  ;  it  is  life  itself  glorified  into 
God's  ideal. 

Dr.  Chalmers,  from  considering  the  minuteness  of 
the  directions  gi\en  to  Moses  for  the  making  of  the 


216  browning's 

tabernacle,  was  led  to  tliink  that  he  himself  was  wrong 
in  attending  too  little  to  the  ^^ petite  morale  "  of  dress. 
"VYill  this  be  excuse  enough  for  occupying  a  few  sen- 
tences with  the  rhyming  of  this  poem  1  Certainly  the 
rhymes  of  a  poem  form  no  small  part  of  its  artistic 
existence.  Probably  there  is  a  deeper  meaning  in  this 
part  of  the  poetic  art  than  has  yet  been  made  clear  to 
poet's  mind.  In  this  poem  the  rhymes  have  their  share 
in  its  humorous  charm.  The  writer's  power  of  using 
double  and  triple  rhymes  is  remarkable,  and  the  effect 
is  often  pleasing,  even  where  they  are  used  in  the  more 
solemn  parts  of  the  poem.     Take  the  lines : — 

**  No  I  love  which,  on  earth,  amid  all  the  shows  of  it» 
Has  ever  been  seen  the  sole  good  of  life  in  it, 
The  love,  ever  growing  there,  spite  of  the  strife  in  it, 
Shall  arise,  made  perfect,  from  death's  repose  of  it." 

A  poem  is  a  thing  not  for  the  understanding  or  heart 
only,  but  likewise  for  the  ear ;  or,  rather,  for  the  under- 
standing and  heart  through  the  ear.  The  best  poem  is 
best  set  forth  when  best  read.  If,  then,  there  be  rhymes 
which,  when  read  aloud,  do,  by  their  composition  of 
words,  prevent  the  understanding  from  laying  hold  on 
the  separate  words,  while  the  ear  lays  hold  on  the 
rhymes,  the  perfection  of  the  art  must  here  be  lost 
sight  of,  notwithstanding  the  completeness  which  the 
rhyming  manifests  on  close  examination.  Eor  instance, 
in  "equipt  yours"  "Scriptures;"  "Manchester^'* 
'*  haunches  stir ;"  or  "  affirm  any"  "  Germany  "  where 
two  words  rhyme  with  one  word.  But  there  are  very 
few  of  them  that  are  objectionable  on  account  of  this 
difficulty  and  necessity  of  lapid  analysis. 


217 

One  of  the  most  wonderful  things  in  the  poem  is, 
that  so  much  of  argument  is  expressed  in  a  species  of 
verse,  which  one  might  be  inclined,  at  first  sight,  to 
think  the  least  fitted  for  embodying  it.  But,  in  fact, 
the  same  amount  of  argument  in  any  other  kind  of 
verse  would,  in  all  likehhood,  have  been  intolerably  dull 
as  a  work  of  art.  Here  the  verse  is  full  of  life  and 
vigour,  flagging  never.  "Where,  in  several  parts,  the 
exact  meaning  is  difficult  to  reach,  this  results  chiefly 
from  the  dramatic  rapidity  and  condensation  of  the 
thoughts.  The  argumentative  power  is  indeed  wonder- 
ful ;  the  arguments  themselves  powerful  in  their  sim- 
plicity, and  embodied  in  words  of  admirable  force. 
The  poem  is  full  of  pathos  and  humonr ;  full  of  beauty 
and  grandeur,  earnestness  and  truth. 


ESSAYS  ON  SOME  OF  THE  FORMS 
OF  LITERATURE." 

CHOPPE,  the  satiric  choras  of  Jean  Paul's 
romance  of  Titan,  makes  his  appearance 
at  a  certain  masked  ball,  carrying  in  front 
of  him  a  glass  case,  in  which  the  ball  is 
remasked,  repeated,  and  again  reflected  in  a  mirror 
behind,  by  a  set  of  puppets,  ludicrously  aping  the 
apery  of  the  courtiers,  whose  whole  life  and  out- 
ward manifestation  was  but  a  body-mask  mechanically 
moved  with  the  semblance  of  real  life  and  action.  The 
court  simulates  reality.  The  masks  are  a  multiform 
mockery  at  their  o^vn  unreality,  and  as  such  are  re- 
garded by  Schoppe,  who  takes  them  off  with  the  utmost 
ridicule  in  his  masked  puppet-show,  which,  with  its 
reflection  in  the  mirror,  is  again  indefinitely  multiplied 
in  the  many-sided  reflector  of  Schoppe's,  or  of  Richter's, 
or  of  the  reader's  own  imagination.  The  successive 
retreating  and  beholding  in  this  scene  is  suggested  to 
the  reviewer  by  the  fact  that  the  last  of  these  essays 
by  Mr.  Lynch  is  devoted  in  part  to  reviews.  So  that 
the  reviews  review  books, — Mr.  Lynch  reviews  the 
reviews,  and  the  present  Reviewer  finds  himself  (some- 
what presumptuously,  it  may  be)  attempting  to  review 

'  **  Essays  on  some  of  the  Forms  of  Literature."    By  T.  T« 
Lynch,  Author  of  **  Theophflus  TrinaL**    Longmaiia. 


FOK:>rS    OF    LITERATURE.  219 

Mr.  Lynch.  In  this,  however,  his  office  mnst  be  very 
different  from  that  of  Schoppe  (for  there  is  a  deeper 
and  more  real  correspondence  between  the  position  of 
the  showman  and  the  reviewer  than  that  outward 
resemblance  which  first  caused  the  one  to  suggest  the 
other).  The  latter's  office,  in  the  present  instance, 
was,  by  mockery,  to  destroy  the  false,  the  very  involu- 
tion of  the  satire  adding  to  the  strength  of  the  ridicule. 
His  glass  case  was  simply  a  review  uttered  by  shapes 
and  wires  instead  of  words  and  handwriting.  And  the 
work  of  the  true  critic  must  sometimes  be  to  condemn, 
and,  as  far  as  his  strength  can  reach,  utterly  to  destroy 
the  false, — scorching  and  withering  its  seeming  beauty, 
till  it  is  reduced  to  its  essence  and  original  ground- 
work of  dust  and  ashes.  It  is  only,  however,  when  it 
wears  the  form  of  beauty  which  is  the  garment  of 
ti^tli,  and  so,  like  the  Erl-maidens,  has  power  to 
bewitch,  that  it  is  worth  the  notice  and  attack  of  the 
critic.  Many  forms  of  error,  perhaps  most,  are  better 
left  alone  to  die  of  their  own  weakness,  for  the  galvanic 
battery  of  criticism  only  helps  to  perpetuate  their 
ghastly  life.  The  highest  work  of  the  critic,  however, 
must  surely  be  to  direct  attention  to  the  true,  in  what- 
ever form  it  may  have  found  utterance.  But  on  this 
let  us  hear  Mr.  Lynch  himself  in  the  last  of  these  four 
lectures  which  were  delivered  by  him  at  the  Eoyal 
Institution,  Manchester,  and  are  now  before  us  in  the 
form  of  a  book  : — 

"  The  kritikos,  the  discemer,  if  he  is  ever  saying  to  ns,  This 
is  not  gold ;  and  never,  This  is  ;  is  either  very  humbly  useftil, 
or  very  perverse,  or  very  unfortiinato.    Thia  is  not  gold,  im 


220  FOEMS    OF   LITERATURE. 

says.  Thank  you,  we  reply,  we  perceived  as  much.  And  this 
is  not,  he  adds.  True,  we  answer,  but  we  see  gold  grains 
glittering  out  of  its  nide,  dark  mass.  Well,  at  least,  this  is 
not,  he  proceeds.  Perverse  man !  we  retort,  are  you  seeking 
what  is  not  gold  ?  We  are  inquiring  for  what  is,  and  unfor- 
tunate indeed  are  we  if,  born  into  a  world  of  Nature,  and  of 
Spirit  once  so  rich,  we  are  bom  but  to  find  that  it  has  spent 
or  has  lost  all  its  wealth.  Unhappy  man  would  he  be,  who, 
walking  bis  garden,  should  scent  only  the  earthy  savour  of 
leaves  dead  or  dying,  never  perceiving,  and  that  afar  ofi",  the 
heavenly  odour  of  roses  fresh  to-day  from  the  Maker's  hands. 
The  discerning  by  spiritual  aroma  may  lead  to  discernment 
by  the  eye,  and  to  that  careful  scrutiny,  and  thence  greater 
knowledge,  of  which  the  eye  is  instrument  and  minister.'* 

And  again  : — 

'*  The  critic  criticized,  if  dealt  with  in  the  worst  fashion  of 
his  own  class,  must  be  pronounced  a  mere  monster,  *  seeking 
whom  he  may  devour ;'  and,  therefore,  to  be  hunted  and  slain 
as  speedily  as  possible,  and  stuffed  for  the  museum,  where  he 
may  be  regarded  with  due  horror,  but  in  safety.  But  if  dealt 
with  after  the  best  fashion  of  his  class,  a  very  honourable  and 
beneficent  ofiice  is  assigned  him,  and  he  is  warned  only— though 
zealously — against  its  perversions.  A  judicial  chair  in  the 
kingdom  of  human  thought,  filled  by  a  man  of  true  integrity, 
comprehensiveness,  and  delicacy  of  spirit,  is  a  seat  of  terror 
and  praise,  whose  powers  are  at  once  most  fostering  to  what- 
ever is  good,  most  repressive  of  whatever  is  evil The 

critic,  in  his  office  of  censurer,  has  need  so  much  to  controvert, 
expose,  and  punish,  because  of  the  abundance  of  literary  faults  ; 
and  as  there  is  a  right  and  a  wrong  side  in  warfare,  so  there 
will  be  in  criticism.  And  as  when  soldiers  are  numerous,  there 
will  be  not  a  few  who  are  only  tolerable,  if  even  that,  so  of 
critics.  But  then  the  critic  is  more  than  the  censurer;  and  in 
his  higher  and  happier  aspect  appears  before  us  and  serves  us, 
as  the  discoverer,  the  vindicator,  and  the  eulogist  of  excel- 
lence." 

But  resisting  the  temptation  to  quote  further  from 


FORMS    OF    LITERATURE.  221 

Mr.  Lynch's  book  on  this  matter  of  Criticism,  which 
seemed  the  natural  point  of  contact  by  which  the 
Eeviewer  could  lay  hold  on  the  book,  he  would  pass 
on  with  the  remark  that  his  duty  in  the  present  instance 
is  of  the  nobler  and  better  sort— nobler  and  better,  that 
is,  with  regard  to  the  object,  for  duty  in  the  man 
remains  ever  the  same— namely,  the  exposition  of  ex- 
cellence, and  not  of  its  opposite.  Mr.  Lynch  is  a  man 
of  true  insight  and  large  heart,  who  has  already  done 
good  in  the  world,  and  will  do  more ;  although,  possibly, 
he  belongs  rather  to  the  last  class  of  writers  described 
by  himself,  in  the  extract  I  am  about  to  give  from  this 
same  essay,  than  to  any  of  the  preceding : — 

"Some  of  the  best  books  are  written  avowedly,  or  with 
evident  consciousness  of  the  fact,  for  the  select  public  that  ia 
constituted  by  minds  of  the  deeper  class,  or  minds  the  more 
advanced  of  their  time.  Such  books  may  have  but  a  re- 
stricted circulation  and  limited  esteem  in  their  own  day,  and 
may  afterwards  extend  both  their  fame  and  the  circle  of  their 
readers.  Others  of  the  best  books,  written  with  a  pathos  and 
a  power  that  may  be  universally  felt,  appeal  at  onco  to  the 
common  humanity  of  the  world,  and  get  a  response  mar- 
vellously strong  and  immediate.  An  ordinary  human  eye  and 
heart,  whose  glances  are  true,  whose  pulses  healthy,  will  fitua 
to  say  of  much  that  we  read— This  is  good,  that  is  poor.  But 
only  the  educated  eye  and  the  experienced  heart  will  fit  us  to 
judge  of  what  relates  to  matters  veiled  from  ordinary  observa- 
tion, and  belougiug  to  the  profounder  region  of  human  thought 
and  emotion.  Powers,  however,  that  the  few  only  possess, 
may  be  required  to  paint  what  everybody  can  see,  so  that 
everybody  shall  say,  How  beautiful !  how  like  !  And  powers 
adequate  to  do  this  in  the  finest  manner  will  be  often  adequate 
to  do  much  more— may  produce,  indeed,  books  or  pictures, 
whose  singular  merit  only  the  few  shall  perceive,  and  the 
soanj  for  awhile  deny,  and  books  or  pictures  which,  whil* 


222  FORMS    OF    LITEKATUEE. 

they  give  an  immediate  and  pure  pleasure  to  the  common  eye, 
shall  give  a  far  fuller  and  finer  pleasure  to  that  eye  that  is  the 
organ  of  a  deeper  and  more  cultivated  soul.  There  are,  too, 
men  of  peculiar  powers,  rare  and  fine,  who  can  never  hope  to 
please  the  large  public,  at  least  of  their  own  age,  but  whose 
writings  are  a  heart's  ease  and  heart's  joy  to  the  select  few, 
and  serve  such  as  a  cup  of  heavenly  comfort  for  the  earth's 
journey,  and  a  lamp  of  heavenly  light  for  the  shadows  of  the 
way." 

One  other  extract  from  the  general  remarks  on  Books 
in  this  essay,  and  we  will  turn  to  another : — 

"  In  all  our  estimation  of  the  various  qualities  of  books,  if  it 
be  true  that  our  reading  assists  our  life,  it  is  true  also  that 
our  life  assists  our  reading.  If  we  let  our  spirit  talk  to  us  in 
undistracted  moments — if  we  commune  with  friendly,  serious 
Nature,  face  to  face,  often — if  we  pursue  honourable  aims  in  a 
steady  progress  — if  we  learn  how  a  man's  best  work  falls 
below  his  thought,  yet  how  still  his  failure  prompts  a  tenderer 
love  of  his  thought — if  we  live  in  sincere,  frank  relations  with 
some  few  friends,  joying  in  their  joy,  hearing  the  tale  and 
sharing  the  pain  of  their  grief,  and  in  frequent  interchange  of 
honest,  household  sensibility — if  we  look  about  us  on  character, 
marking  distinctly  what  we  can  see,  and  feeling  the  prompting 
of  a  hundred  questions  concerning  what  is  out  of  our  ken  : — if 
we  live  thus,  we  shall  be  good  readers  and  critics  of  books, 
and  improving  ones.*' 

The  second  and  third  of  these  essays  are  on  Biography 
and  Fiction  respectively  and  principally;  treating,  how- 
ever, of  collateral  subjects  as  well.  Deep  is  the  rela- 
tion between  the  life  shadowed  forth  in  a  biography, 
and  the  life  in  a  man's  brain  which  he  shadows  forth 
in  a  fiction  — when  that  fiction  is  of  the  highest  order, 
and  written  in  love,  is  beheld  even  by  the  writer  him- 
self with  reverence.     Delightful,  surely,  it  must  be ; 


FORMS    OF    LITERATrRE.  223 

yes,  awful  too,  to  read  to-day  the  embodiment  of  a 
man's  noblest  thought,  to  follow  the  hero  of  his  creation 
through  his  temptations,  contests,  and  victories,  in  a 
world  which  likewise  is — 

"  All  made  out  of  the  carver's  brain ;" 

and  to-morrow  to  read  the  biography  of  this  same 
writer.  What  of  his  own  ideal  has  he  realized  1  Where 
can  the  life-fountain  be  detected  within  him  which 
foimd  issue  to  the  world's  light  and  air,  in  this  ideal 
self  1  Shall  God's  fiction,  which  is  man's  reality,  fall 
short  of  man's  fiction  1  Shall  a  man  be  less  than  what 
he  can  conceive  and  utter  1  Surely  it  will  not,  cannot 
end  thus.  If  a  man  live  at  all  in  harmony  with  the 
great  laws  of  being — if  he  will  permit  the  working  out 
of  God's  idea  in  him,  he  must  one  day  arrive  at  some- 
thing greater  than  what  now  he  can  project  and  behold. 
Yet,  in  biography,  we  do  not  so  often  find  traces  of 
those  struggles  depicted  in  the  loftier  fiction.  One 
reason  may  be  that  the  contest  is  often  entirely  within, 
and  so  a  man  may  have  won  his  spiritual  freedom  with- 
out any  outward  token  directly  significant  ot  the  vic- 
tory ;  except,  if  he  be  an  artist,  such  expression  as  it 
finds  in  fiction,  whether  the  fiction  be  in  marble,  or  in 
sweet  harmonies,  or  in  ink.  Nor  can  we  determine  the 
true  significance  of  any  living  act ;  for  being  ourselves 
within  the  compass  of  the  life-mystery,  we  cannot  hold 
it  at  arm's  length  from  us  and  look  v.t  its  lines  of  con- 
figuration. Xor  of  a  life  can  we  in  any  measure  deter- 
mine the  success  by  what  we  behold  of  it.  It  is  to  us 
at  best  but  a  truncated  spire,  whose  want  of  completion 


22i  POEMS    OS    LITERATURE. 

may  be  the  greater  because  of  the  breadth  of  its  base, 
and  its  slow  taper,  indicating  the  lofty  height  to  which 
it  is  intended  to  aspire.  The  idea  of  our  own  life  is 
more  than  we  can  embrace.  It  is  not  ours,  but  God's, 
and  fades  away  into  the  infinite.  Our  comprehension 
is  finite ;  we  ourselves  infinite.  We  can  only  trust  in 
God  and  do  the  truth  ;  then,  and  then  only,  is  our  life 
safe,  and  sure  both  of  continuance  and  development. 

But  the  reviewer  perhaps  too  often  merely  steals  his 
author's  text  and  writes  upon  it ;  or,  like  a  man  who 
lies  in  bed  thinking  about  a  dream  till  its  folds  enwrap 
him  and  he  sinks  into  the  midst  of  its  visions,  he  for- 
gets his  position  of  beholding,  and  passes  from  observa- 
tion into  spontaneous  utterance.  What  says  our  author 
about  "  biography,  autobiography,  and  history  ? "  This 
lecture  has  pleased  the  reviewer  most  of  the  four. 
Reading  it  in  a  lonely  place,  under  a  tree,  with  wide 
fields  and  slopes  around,  it  produced  on  his  mind  the 
two  efi"ects  which  perhaps  Mr.  Lynch  would  most  wish 
it  should  produce — namely,  first,  a  longing  to  lead  a 
more  true  and  noble  life ;  and,  secondly,  a  desire  to 
read  more  biography.  Nor  can  he  but  hope  that  it 
must  produce  the  same  eff'ect  on  every  earnest  reader, 
on  every  one  whose  own  biography  would  not  be  alto- 
gether a  blank  in  what  regards  the  individual  will  and 
spiritual  aim. 

"  In  meditative  hours,  when  we  blend  despair  of  ourself  with 
complaint  of  the  world,  the  biography  of  a  man  successful  in 
this  great  business  of  living  is  as  the  visit  of  an  angel  sent  to 
strengthen  ns.  Give  the  soldier  his  sword,  the  farmer  his 
plough,  tte  carpenter  his  hammer  and  nails,  the  manufacturer 
his  maohinesy  the  merchant  his  stores,  and  the  scholar  hif 


FORMS    OF    LITERATURE.  225 

books  ;  these  are  bnt  implements ;  the  man  is  more  than  his 
work  cr  tools.  How  far  has  he  fulfilled  the  law  of  his  being, 
and  attained  its  desire  ?  Is  his  life  a  whole ;  the  days  as 
threads  and  as  touches  ;  the  life,  the  well-woven  gannent,  the 
well-painted  picture  ?  Which  of  two  sacrifices  has  he  offered — 
the  one  so  acceptable  to  the  powers  of  dark  worlds,  the  other 
so  acceptable  to  powers  of  bright  ones  -  that  of  soul  to  body, 
or  that  of  body  to  soul  ?  Has  he  slain  what  was  holiest  in 
him  to  obtain  gifts  from  Fashion  or  Mammon  ?  Or  has  he,  in 
days  so  arduous,  so  assiduous,  that  they  are  like  a  noble  ai-my 
of  martyrs,  made  burnt  offering  of  what  was  secoadary, 
throwing  into  the  flames  the  salt  of  true  moral  energy  and  the 
incense  of  cordial  affections  ?  We  want  the  work  to  show  ns 
by  its  parts,  its  mass,  its  form,  the  qualities  of  the  man,  and 
to  see  that  the  man  is  perfected  through  his  work  as  well  as 
the  work  finished  by  his  effort." 

Perhaps  the  highest  moral  height  which  a  man  can 
reach,  and  at  the  same  time  the  most  difficult  of  attain- 
ment, is  the  willingness  to  be  nothing  relatively,  so  that 
he  attain  that  positive  excellence  which  the  original 
conditions  of  his  being  render  not  merely  possible,  but 
imperative.  It  is  nothing  to  a  man  to  be  greater  or 
less  than  another — to  be  esteemed  or  otherwise  by  the 
public  or  private  world  in  which  he  moves.  Does  he, 
or  does  he  not,  behold,  and  love,  and  live,  the  un- 
changeable, the  essential,  the  divine?  This  he  can 
only  do  according  as  God  hath  made  him.  He  can 
behold  and  understand  Grod  in  the  least  degree,  as  well 
as  in  the  greatest,  only  by  the  godlike  within  him ; 
and  he  that  loves  thus  the  good  and  great,  has  no  room, 
no  thought,  no  necessity  for  comparison  and  difference. 
The  truth  satisfies  ,  him.  He  lives  in  its  absoluteness. 
Gkni  makes  the  glow-worm  as  well  as  the  star ;  the 

Q 


226  FOEMS    OF    LITERATURE. 

light  in  both  is  divine.  If  mine  be  an  earth-star  to 
gladden  the  wayside,  I  must  cultivate  humbly  and 
rejoicingly  its  green  earth-glow,  and  not  seek  to  blanch 
it  to  the  whiteness  of  the  stars  that  lie  in  the  fields  of 
blue.  For  to  deny  Grod  in  my  own  being  is  to  cease  to 
behold  him  in  any.  God  and  man  can  meet  only  by 
the  man's  becoming  that  which  Grod  meant  him  to  be. 
Then  he  enters  into  the  house  of  life,  which  is  greater 
than  the  house  of  fame.  It  is  better  to  be  a  child 
in  a  green  field  than  a  knight  of  many  orders  in  a  state 
ceremonial 

**  One  biography  may  help  conjecture  or  satisfy  reason  con- 
cerning the  story  of  a  thousand  unrecorded  lives.  And  how  few 
even  of  the  deserving  among  the  multitude  can  deserve,  as 
*  dear  sons  of  memory,'  to  be  shrined  in  the  public  heart. 
Few  of  us  die  unwept,  but  most  of  us  unwritten.  We  shall 
find  a  grave — less  certainly  a  tombstone — and  with  much  less 
likelihood  a  biographer.  Those  '  bright  particular '  stars  that 
at  evening  look  towards  us  from  afar,  y  t  still  are  individual 
in  the  distance,  are  at  clearest  times  but  about  a  thousand  ; 
but  the  milky  lustre  that  runs  through  mid  heaven  is  com- 
posed of  a  million  million  lights,  which  are  not  the  less  separate 
because  seen  undistinguishably.  Absorbed,  not  lost,  in  the 
multitude  of  the  unrecorded,  our  private  dear  ones  make  part 
in  this  mild,  blissful  shining  of  the  '  general  assembly,*  the 
great  congregation  of  the  skies.  Thus  the  past  is  aglow  with 
the  unwritten,  the  nameless.  The  leaders,  sons  of  fame,  con- 
spicuous in  lustre,  eminent  in  place ;  these  are  the  few,  whose 
great  individuality  bums  with  distinct,  starry  light  through 
the  dark  of  ages.  Such  stars,  without  the  starry  way,  would 
not  teach  us  the  vastness  of  heaven  ;  and  the  •  way,'  without 
these,  were  not  sufficient  to  gladden  and  glorify  the  night 
with  pomp  of  Hierarchical  Ascents  of  Domination." 

There  aie  many  passages  in  this  essay  with  which 


FORMS    OF    LITERATURE.  227 

the  reviewer  would  be  glad  to  enrich  his  notice  of  the 
book,  but  limitation  of  space,  and  perhaps  justice  to  the 
essay  itself,  which  ought  to  be  read  in  its  own  com- 
pleteness, forbid.  Mr.  Lynch  looks  to  the  heart  of 
the  matter,  and  makes  one  put  the  question — "  Would 
not  a  biography  written  by  Mr.  Lynch  himself  be  a 
valuable  addition  to  this  kind  of  literature?"  His 
would  not  be  an  interesting  account  of  outward  events 
and  relationships  and  progress,  nor  even  a  succession  of 
revelations  of  inward  conditions,  but  we  should  expect 
to  find  ourselves  elevated  by  him  to  a  point  of  view 
from  which  the  Kfe  of  the  man  would  assume  an  artis- 
tic individuality,  as  it  were  an  isolation  of  existence ; 
for  the  supposed  author  could  not  choose  for  his 
regard  any  biography  for  which  this  would  be  im- 
possible ;  or  in  which  the  reticulated  nerves  of  pur- 
pose did  not  combine  the  whole,  mth  more  or  less 
of  success,  into  a  true  and  remarkable  unity.  One 
passage  more  from  tliis  essay, — 

"  Biography,  then,  makes  life  known  to  us  as  more  wealthy 
in  character,  and  much  more  remarkable  in  its  everj-day 
stories,  than  we  had  deemed  it.  Another  good  it  docs  us  is 
this.  It  introduces  us  to  some  of  our  most  agreeable  and 
stimulative  friendships.  People  ,may  be  more*  beneficially 
intimate  witb  one  they  never  saw  than  even  with  a  neighbour 
or  brother.  Many  a  solitary,  puzzled,  incommunicative  person, 
has  found  society  provided,  his  liddle  read,  and  liis  heart's 
secret,  that  longed  and  strove  for  utterance,  outspoken  for 
him  in  a  biography.  And  both  a  love  purer  than  any  yet  enter- 
tained may  be  originated,  and  a  pure  but  ungratified  love 
already  existing,  find  an  object,  by  the  visit  of  a  biography. 
In  actual  life  you  see  ydur  friend  to-day,  and  will  see  him  again 
to-morrow  or  next  year  j  but  in  the  dear  book,  yoa  hare  your 
Q  2 


228  FORMS    OF    LITERATURE. 

friend  and  all  his  experiences  at  once  and  ever.     He  is  witb 

you  wholly,  and  may  be  with  you  at  any  time.  He  lives  foi 
you,  and  has  already  died  for  you,  to  give  finish  to  the  meaning, 
fulness,  and  sanctity,  to  the  comfort  of  his  days.  He  is  mys- 
teriously above  as  well  as  before  you,  by  this  fact,  that  he  has 
died.  Thus  your  intimate  is  your  superior,  your  solace,  but 
your  support,  too,  and  an  example  of  the  victoiy  to  which  he 
calls  you.  His  end,  or  her  end,  is  our  own  in  view,  and  the 
flagging  spirit  revives.  We  see  the  goal,  and  gird  our  loins 
anew  for  the  race.  Or,  speaking  of  things  minor,  there  is 
fresh  prospect  of  the  game,  there  is  companionship  in  the 
hunt,  and  spirit  for  the  winning.  Such  biography,  too,  is  a 
mirror  in  which  we  see  ourselves  ;  and  we  see  that  we  may 
trim  or  adorn,  or  that  the  plain  signs  of  our  deficient  health  or 
ill-ruled  temper  may  set  us  to  look  for,  and  to  use  the  means 
of  improvement.  But  such  a  mirror  is  as  a  water  one  ;  in  which 
first  you  may  see  your  face,  and  which  then  becomes  for  you  a 
bath  to  wash  away  the  stains  you  see,  and  to  ofier  its  pure, 
cool  stream  as  a  restorative  and  cosmetic  for  your  wrinkles 
and  pallors.  And  what  a  pleasure  there  will  be  sometimes  as 
we  peruse  a  biography,  in  finding  another  who  is  so  like  our- 
self — saying  the  same  things,  feeling  the  same  dreads,  and 
shames,  and  flutterings  ;  hampered  and  harassed  much  as  poor 
self  is.  Then,  the  escapes  of  such  a  friend  give  us  hope  of 
deliverance  for  ourself ;  and  his  better,  or  if  not  better,  yet  re- 
warded, patience,  freshens  our  eye  and  sinews,  and  puts  a  staff 
into  our  hand.  And  certain  seals  of  impossibility  that  we  had 
put  on  this  stone,  and  on  that,  beneath  which  our  hopes  lay 
buried,  are  by  this  biography,  as  by  a  visiting  angel,  effectually 
broken,  and  our  hopes  arise  again.  Our  view  of  life  becomes 
more  complete  because  we  see  the  whole  of  his,  or  of  hers. 
We  view  life,  too,  in  a  more  composed,  tender  way.  Wavering 
faith,  in  its  chosen  determining  principles,  is  confirmed.  In 
quiet  comparison  of  ourselves  with  one  of  otu*  own  class,  or 
one  who  has  made  the  mark  for  which  we  are  striving,  we  are 
shamed  to  have  done  no  better,  and  stirred  to  attempt  former 
things  again,  or  fresh  ones  in  a  stronger  and  more  patient 
■pirit.'* 


FORMS    OF   LITEEATTIEE.  229 

It  is,  indeed,  well  with  him  who  has  foirnd  a 
friend  whose  spirit  touches  his  own  and  illuminates  it. 

**  I  missed  him  -wheii  the  sun  began  to  bend  ; 
I  fonnd  him  not  when  I  had  lost  his  rim  ; 
With  many  tears  I  went  in  search  of  him, 
Climbing  high  mountains  which  did  still  ascend. 
And  gave  me  echoes  when  I  called  mj  friend ; 
Through  cities  vast  and  charnel-houses  grim, 
And  high  cathedrals  where  the  light  was  dim; 
Through  books,  and  arts,  and  works  without  an  end- 
But  found  him  not,  the  friend  whom  I  had  lost. 
And  yet  I  found  him,  as  I  found  the  lark, 
A  sound  in  fields  I  heard  but  could  not  mark; 
I  fonnd  him  nearest  when  I  missed  him  most, 
I  found  him  in  my  heart,  a  life  in  frost, 
A  light  I  knew  not  till  my  soul  was  dark." 

'Next  to  possessing  a  true,  wise,  and  victorious 
friend  seated  by  your  fireside,  it  is  blessed  to  have 
the  spirit  of  such  a  friend  embodied — for  spirit  can 
assume  any  embodiment — on  your  bookshelves.  But 
in  the  latter  case  the  friendship  is  all  on  one  side.  For 
full  friendship  your  friend  must  love  you,  and  know 
that  you  love  him.  Surely  these  biographies  are  not 
merely  spiritual  links  connecting  us  in  the  truest 
manner  with  past  times  and  vanished  minds,  and  thus 
producing  strong  half  friendships.  Are  they  not  like- 
wise links  connecting  us  with  a  future,  wherein  these 
souls  shall  dawn  upon  ours,  rising  again  from  the 
death  of  the  past  into  the  life  of  our  knowledge  and 
love  1  Are  not  these  biographies  letters  of  introduction, 
forwarded,  but  not  yet  followed  by  him  whom  they 
introduce,  for  whose  step  we  listen,  and  whose  voice  we 


230  FORMS    or   LITEBATURE. 

long  to  hear ;  and  whom  we  shall  yet  meet  somewhere 
in  the  Infinite  ?  Shall  I  not  one  day,  "  somewhere, 
somehow,"  clasp  the  large  hand  of  Novalis,  and,  gazing 
on  his  face,  compare  his  features  with  those  of  Saint 
John? 

The  essay  on  light  literature  must  be  left  to  the 
spontaneous  appreciation  of  those  who  are  already 
acquainted  with  this  book,  or  who  may  be  induced,  by 
the  representations  here  made,  to  become  acquainted 
M-ith  it.  Before  proceeding  to  notice  the  first  essay  in 
the  little  volume,  namely,  that  on  Poetry,  its  subject 
suggests  the  fact  of  the  publication  of  a  second  edition 
of  the  Memorials  of  Theophilus  Trinal,  by  the  same 
author,  a  portion  of  which  consists  of  interspersed  poems. 
These  are  of  true  poetic  worth  ;  and  although  in  some 
cases  wanting  in  rhythmic  melody,  yet  in  most  of  these 
cases  they  possess  a  wild  and  peculiar  rhythm  of  their 
own.  The  reviewer  knows  of  some  whose  hearts  this 
book  has  made  glad,  and  doubtless  there  are  many 
such. 

The  essay  on  Poetry  is  itself  poetic  throughout  in  its 
expression.  And  how  else  shall  Poetry  be  described 
than  by  Poetry  ?  What  form  shall  embrace  and  define 
the  highest  1  Must  it  not  be  self-descriptive  as  self- 
existent  ?  For  what  man  is  to  this  planet,  what  the 
eye  is  to  man  liimseK,  Poetry  is  to  Literature.  Yet 
one  can  hardly  help  wishing  that  the  poetic  forms  in 
this  Essay  were  fewer  and  less  minute,  and  the  whole 
a  little  more  scientific ;  though  it  is  a  question  how  far 
we  have  a  right  to  ask  for  this.  As  you  open  it,  how- 
ever, the  pages  seem  absolutely  to  sparkle,  as  if  strewn 


FORMS    OF    LITERATURE.  23 1 

with  diamond  sparks.  It  is  no  dull,  metallic,  surface 
lustre,  but  a  shining  from  within,  as  well  as  from  the 
superficies.  Still  one  cannot  deny  that  fancy  is  too 
prominent  in  IVIr.  Lynch's  writings.  It  is  true  that  his 
Fancy  is  the  fairy  attendant  on  his  Imagination,  which 
latter  uses  the  former  for  her  own  higher  ends ;  and 
that  there  is  little  or  no  mere  fancy  to  he  found  in  his 
books ;  for  if  you  look  below  the  surface-form  you  find 
a  truth.  But  it  were  to  be  desired  that  the  Truth 
clothed  herself  always  in  the  living  forms  of  Imagina- 
tion, and  thus  walked  forth  amongst  her  worshippers, 
looking  on  them  from  Kving  eyes,  rather  than  that  she 
should  show  herself  through  the  windows  of  fancy. 
Sometimes  there  may  be  an  offence  against  taste,  as  in 
page  20  ;  sometimes  an  image  may  be  expanded  too 
much,  and  sometimes  the  very  exuberance  of  imagina- 
tive fancy  (if  the  combination  be  correct)  may  lead  to 
an  association  of  images  that  suggests  incongruity. 
StiU  the  essay  is  abundantly  beautiful  and  true.  The 
poetical  quotations  are  not  isolated,  or  exposed  to  view- 
as  specimens,  but  are  worked  into  the  web  of  the  prose 
Hke  the  flowers  in  the  damask,  and  do  their  part  in  the 
evolution  of  the  continuous  thought. 

"If  poetry,  as  light  from  the  heart  of  God,  is  for  our  heart, 
that  we  may  brighten  and  distinguish  individual  things  j  if  it 
is  to  transfigure  for  us  the  round,  dusk  world  as  by  an  inner 
radiance ;  if  it  is  to  present  human  life  and  history  as 
Rembrandt  pictm-es,  in  which  darkness  serves  and  glorifies 
light ;  if,  like  light,  formless  in  its  essence,  all  things  shapen 
towards  the  perfection  of  their  forms  under  its  influence ;  if, 
entering  as  through  crevices  in  single  beams,  it  makes  dimmest 
plaoes  <d)eerfal  and  saored  with  its  golden  touch :  then  moat 


232  FORMS    OF    LITERATURE. 

"the  heart  of  the  Poet  in  whioli  this  true  light  shir.eth  be  as  a 
hospice  on  the  mountain  pathways  of  the  world,  and  his  verse 
mnst  be  the  lamp  seen  from  far  that  bums  to  tell  us  where 
bread  and  shelter,  drink,  fire,  and  companionship,  may  be 
found;  and  he  himself  should  have  the  mountaineer's  hardi- 
ness and  resolution.  From  the  heart  as  source,  to  the  heart 
in  influence,  Poetry  comes.  The  inward,  the  upward,  and  the 
onward,  whether  we  speak  of  an  individual  or  a  nation,  may  not 
be  separated  in  our  consideration.  Deep  and  sacred  imagina- 
tive meditations  are  needed  for  the  true  earthward  as  well  as 
for  the  heavenward  progress  of  men  and  peoples.  And  Poetry, 
whether  old  or  new,  streaming  from  the  heart  moved  by  the 
powerful  spirit  of  love,  has  influence  on  the  heart  public  and 
individual,  and  thence  on  the  manners,  laws,  and  institutions  of 
nations.  If  Poesy  visit  the  length  and  bieadth  of  a  country 
after  years  unfruitfully  dull,  coming  like  a  showery  fer'^^ilizing 
wind  after  drought,  the  corners  and  the  valley-hidings  are 
visited  too,  and  these  perhaps  she  now  visits  first,  as  these 
sometimes  she  has  visited  only.  For  miles  and  for  miles,  the 
public  com,  the  bread  of  the  nation's  life,  is  bettered ;  and  in 
our  own  endeared  spot,  the  roses,  delight  of  our  individual  eye 
and  sense,  yield  us  more  prosperingly  their  colour  and  their 
fragrance.  For  the  universal  sunshine  which  brightens  a 
thousand  cities,  beautifies  ten  thousand  homesteads,  and  re- 
joices ten  times  ten  thousand  hearts.  And  as  rains  in  the  mid 
season  renew  for  awhile  the  faded  greetmess  of  spring ;  and 
trees  in  fervent  summers,  when  their  foliage  has  deepened  or 
fully  fixed  its  hue,  bedeck  themselves  through  the  fervency 
with  bright  midsummer  shoots ;  so,  by  Poetry  are  the  youthful 
hues  of  the  soul  renewed,  and  truths  that  have  long  stood  fuU- 
foliaged  in  our  minds,  are  by  its  fine  influences  empowered  to 
put  forth  fresh  shoots.  Thus  age,  which  is  a  necessity  for  the 
body,  may  be  warded  off  as  a  disease  from  the  soul,  and  we  may 
be  like  the  old  man  in  Chauoer,  who  had  nothing  hoary  about 
him  but  his  hairs — 

•**  Though  I  be  hoor  I  fare  as  doth  a  tree 
That  blosmeth  er  the  fruit  ywoxen  be, 
The  blosmy  tree  n*  is  neither  drie  ne  ded  t 


FORMS    OF   LITERATURE.  233 

I  feel  me  nowhere  hoor  but  on  my  head. 
Min  herte  and  all  my  limm^s  ben  as  grene 
As  laurel  through  the  yere  is  for  to  sene/  ** 

Hear  our  anthor  again  as  to  the  calling  of  the  poet : — 

"  To  unite  earthly  love  and  celestial — '  true  to  the  kindred 
points  of  heaven  and  home  ;'  to  reconcile  time  and  eternity ;  to 
draw  presage  of  joy's  victory  from  the  delight  of  the  secret 
honey  dropping  from  the  clefts  of  rocky  sorrow ;  to  harmonize 
our  instinctive  longings  for  the  definite  and  the  infinite,  in  the 
ideal  Perfect ;  to  read  creation  as  a  human  book  of  the  heart, 
both  plain  and  mystical,  and  divinely  written :  such  is  the 
office  fulfilled  by  best-loved  poets.  Their  ladder  of  celestial 
ascent  must  be  fixed  on  its  base,  earth,  if  its  top  is  to  securely 
rest  on  heaven." 

Beautifully,  too,  does  he  describe  the  birth  of 
Poetry  ;  though  one  may  doubt  its  correctness,  at  least 
if  attributed  to  the  highest  kind  of  poetry. 

"  When  words  of  felt  truth  were  first  spoken  by  the  first 
pair,  in  love  of  their  garden,  their  God,  and  one  another,  and 
these  words  were  with  joyful  surprise  telt  to  be  in  their  form 
and  glow  answei-able  to  the  happy  thought  uttered;  then 
Poetry  sprang.  And  when  the  first  Father  and  first  Mother, 
settling  their  soul  upon  its  thought,  found  that  thought 
brighten ;  and  when  from  it,  as  thus  they  mused,  like 
branchlets  from  a  branch,  or  flowerets  from  their  bud,  other 
thoughts  came,  raugiug  themselves  by  the  exerted,  yet  pain- 
lessly exerted,  power  of  the  soul,  in  an  order  felt  to  be  beauti- 
ful, and  of  a  sound  pleasant  in  utterance  to  ear  and  soul; 
being  withal,  through  the  sweetness  of  their  impression  on  the 
heart,  fixed  for  memory's  frequentest  recurrence ;  then  was 
the  world's  fixst  poem  composed,  and  in  the  joyful  flutter  of  a 
heart  that  had  thus  become  a  maker,  the  maker  of  a  *  thing  of 
beauty,'  like  in  beauty  even  unto  God's  heaven,  and  trees,  and 
flowers,  the  secret  of  Poesy  shone  tremulously  forth." 

Whether  this  be  so  or  not,  the  highest  poetic  feeling 


234  FORMS    OF    LITERATURE. 

of  which  we  are  now  r.onscious  springs  not  from  the 
beholding  of  perfected  beauty,  but  from  the  mute  sym- 
pathy which  the  creation  with  all  its  children  manifests 
with  us  in  the  groaning  and  travailing  which  looketh 
for  the  sonship.  Because  of  our  need  and  aspiration, 
the  snowdrop  gives  birth  in  our  hearts  to  a  loftier 
spiritual  and  poetic  feeling,  than  the  rose  most  complete 
in  form,  colour,  and  odour.  The  rose  is  of  Paradise — 
the  snowdrop  is  of  the  striving,  hoping,  longing  Earth. 
Perhaps  our  highest  poetry  is  the  expression  of  our 
aspirations  in  the  sympathetic  forms  of  visible  nature. 
Nor  is  this  merely  a  longing  for  a  restored  Paradise; 
for  even  in  the  ordinary  history  of  men,  no  man  or 
woman  that  has  fallen  can  be  restored  to  the  position 
formerly  occupied.  Such  must  rise  to  a  yet  higher 
place,"  whence  they  can  behold  their  former  standing 
far  beneath  their  feet.  They  must  be  restored  by 
attaining  something  better  than  they  ever  possessed 
before,  or  not  at  all.  If  the  law  be  a  weariness,  we  must 
escape  it  by  being  filled  with  the  spirit,  for  not  other- 
wise can  we  fulfil  the  law  than  by  being  above  the  law. 
There  is  for  us  no  escape,  save  as  the  Poet  counsels 
us:— 

"  Is  thy  strait  horizon  dreary  P 

Is  thy  foolish  fancy  chill  ? 
Change  the  feet  that  have  grown  weary, 

For  the  wings  that  never  will. 
Burst  the  flesh  and  live  the  spirit  j 

Haunt  the  beautiful  and  far ; 
Thou  hast  all  things  to  inherit, 

And  a  soul  for  every  star.'* 

Bat  the  Keviewer  must  hasten  to  take  leave,  though 


FOKMS    OF   LITEEATURE.  235 

nnwillingly,  of  this  pleasing,  earnest,  and  profitable 
book.  Perhaps  it  could  be  wished  that  the  writer 
helped  his  readers  a  little  more  into  the  channel  of  his 
thought ;  made  it  easier  for  them  to  see  the  direction 
in  which  he  is  leading  them ;  called  out  to  them, 
"  Come  up  hither,'*  before  he  said,  "  I  will  show  you  a 
thing."  But  the  Ke viewer  says  this  with  deference  ; 
and  takes  his  leave  with  the  hope  that  Mr.  Lynch  will 
be  listened  to  for  two  good  reasons  :  first,  that  he  speaks 
the  truth  j  last,  that  he  has  already  suffered  for  the 
Truth's  sake. 


THE     HISTORY     AND     HEROES     OF 
MEDICINE" 

N  this  volume,  Dr.  Russell  has  not  merely 
aimed  at  the  production  of  a  book  that 
might  be  serviceable  to  the  Faculty,  by 
which  the  history  of  its  own  art  is  not 
at  all  sufficiently  studied,  but  has  aspired  to  the  far 
more  difficult  success  of  writing  a  history  of  medi- 
cine which  shall  be  readable  to  all  who  care  for  true 
history — that  history,  namely,  in  which  not  merely 
growth  and  change  are  represented,  but  the  secret 
supplies  and  influences  as  well,  which  minister  to 
the  one  and  occasion  the  other.  If  the  difficulty  has 
been  greater  (although  with  his  evidently  wide  sym- 
pathies and  keen  insight  into  humanity  we  doubt  if  it 
has),  the  success  is  the  more  honourable  ;  for  a  success 
it  certainly  is.  The  partially  biographical  plan  on 
which  he  has  constructed  his  work  has  no  doubt  aided 
in  the  accompKshment  of  this  purpose;  for  it  is  much 
easier  to  present  the  subject  in  its  human  relations, 
when  its  history  is  given  in  connexion  with  the  lives 
of  those  who  were  most  immediately  associated  with  it. 
l)Ut  it  would  be  a  great  mistake  to  conclude  from  this, 
that  it  is  the  less  a  history  of  the  art  itself ;  for  no  art 

^  By  J.  Eutherfurd  Eussell,  M.D. 


THE   HISTOEY   AND    HEEOES    OF   MEDICINE.    2o7 

or  science  has  life  in  itself,  apart  from  the  minds  which 
foresee,  discover,  and  verify  it.  Whatever  point  in  its 
progress  it  may  have  reached,  it  will  there  remain 
until  a  new  man  appears,  whose  new  questions  shall 
illicit  new  replies  from  nature— replies  which  are  the 
essential  food  of  the  science,  by  which  it  lives,  grows, 
and  makes  itself  a  history. 

Nor  must  our  readers  suppose  that  because  the  book 
is  readable,  it  is  therefore  slight,  eithei  in  material  or 
construction.  Much  reading  and  research  have  pro- 
vided the  material,  wMle  real  thought  and  argument 
have  superintended  the  construction.  Noi  is  it  by  any 
means  without  the  adornment  that  a  poetic  tempera- 
ment and  a  keen  sense  of  humour  can  supply. 

Naturally,  the  central  life  in  the  book  is  that  of 
Lord  Bacon,  the  man  who  brought  out  of  his  treasures 
things  both  new  and  old.  Up  to  him  the  story  gradu- 
ally leads  from  the  prehistoric  times  of  .^culapius,  the 
pathway  first  becoming  plainly  visible  in  the  life  and 
labours  of  Hippocrates.  His  fine  intellect  and  powers 
of  acute  observation  afforded  the  material  necessary  for 
the  making  of  a  true  physician.  The  Greek  mind, 
partly,  perhaps,  from  its  artistic  tendencies,  seems  to 
have  been  peculiarly  impatient  of  incomplete  forms,  and 
therefore,  to  have  much  preferred  the  construction  of  a 
theory  from  the  most  shadowy  material,  to  the  patient  ex- 
periment and  investigation  necessary  for  the  procuring 
of  the  real  substance ;  and  Hippocrates,  not  knowing  how 
to  advance  to  a  theory  by  rational  experiment,  and  too 
honest  to  invent  one,  assumes  the  traditional  theories, 
lounded  on  the  vaguest  and  most  obtrusive  generaliza- 


238    THE    HISTORY    AND    HEROES    OF    MEDICINE. 

tions.  Those  which  his  experience  taught  him  to  re- 
ject, were  adopted  and  maintained  hy  Galen  and  all 
who  followed  him  for  centuries,  the  chief  instance  of 
progress  heing  only  the  substitution  by  the  Arabians  of 
some  of  the  milder  medicines  now  in  use,  for  the 
terrible  and  often  fatal  drugs  employed  by  the  Greek 
and  Eoman  physicians.  The  fanciful  classification  of 
diseases  into  four  kinds — hot,  cold,  moist  and  dry, 
with  the  corresponding  arbitrary  classification  of  reme- 
dies to  be  administered  by  contraries,  continued  to  be 
the  only  recognized  theory  of  medicine  for  many  cen- 
turies after  the  Christian  era. 

But  Lord  Bacon,  amongst  other  branches  of  know- 
ledge which  he  considers  ill-followed,  makes  especial 
mention  of  medicine,  which  he  would  submit  to  the 
same  rules  of  observation  and  experiment  laid  down  by 
him  for  the  advancement  of  learning  in  general  "With 
regard  to  it,  as  with  regard  to  the  discovery  of  all  the 
higher  laws  of  nature,  he  considers  "  that  men  have 
made  too  untimely  a  departure,  and  too  remote  a  recess 
from  particulars."  Men  have  hurried  to  conclusions, 
and  then  argued  from  them  as  from  facts.  Therefore 
let  us  have  no  traditional  theories,  and  make  none  for 
ourselves  but  such  as  are  revealed  in  the  form  of  laws 
to  the  patient  investigator,  who  has  "  straightened  and 
held  fast  Proteus,  that  he  might  be  compelled  to  change 
his  shapes,"  and  so  reveal  his  nature.  Hence  one  of 
the  aspects  in  which  Lord  Bacon  was  compelled  to 
appear  was  that  of  a  destroyer  of  what  preceded.  In 
this  he  resembled  Cardan  and  Paracelsus  who  went 
before  him,  and  who  like  him  pulled  down,  bat  could 


THE    HISTORY    AXD    HEROES    OF   MEDICINE.    239 

not,  Kke  him,  build  up.  He  resembled  tbem,  how- 
ever, in  the  possession  of  another  element  of  character, 
namely,  that  poetic  imagination  which  looks  abroad  into 
the  regions  of  possibilities,  and  foresees  or  invents.  But 
in  the  case  of  the  charlatan,  the  vaguest  suggestions  of 
his  mind  in  its  favourite  mood,  is  adopted  as  a  theory- 
all  but  proved,  if  not  as  a  direct  revelation  to  the 
favoured  individual ;  while  the  true  thinker  seeks  but 
an  hypothesis  corresponding  in  some  measure  to  facts 
already  discovered,  in  order  that  he  may  have  the  sug- 
gestion of  new  experiments  and  investigations  in  the 
course  of  his  attempts  to  verify  or  disprove  the  hypo- 
thesis. Lord  Bacon  considered  hypothesis  invaluable 
in  the  discovery  of  truth,  but  he  only  used  it  as  a  board 
upon  which  to  write  his  questions  to  nature ;  or,  to 
use  another  figure,  hypothesis  with  him  is  as  the  next 
stepping-stone  in  the  swollen  river,  which  he  supposes 
to  be  here  or  there,  and  so  feels  for  with  his  staff. 
But  it  must  be  proved  before  it  be  regarded  as  a  law, 
and  greatly  corroborated  before  it  be  even  adopted  as  a 
theory.  Cardan  and  Paracelsus  were  destroyei-s  and 
mystics  only ;  they  destroyed  on  the  earth  that  they 
might  build  in  the  air :  Lord  Bacon  united  both 
characters  in  the  philosopher.  He  looked  abroad  into 
the  regions  of  the  unknown,  whence  all  knowledge 
comes ;  he  called  wonder  the  seed*  of  knowledge  ;  but 
he  would  build  nowhere  but  on  the  earth — on  the  firm 
land  of  ascertained  truth.  That  which  kept  him  right 
was  his  practical  humanity.  It  was  for  the  sake  of 
delivering  men  from  the  ills  of  life,  by  discovering  the 
laws  of  ihe  elements  amidst  which  that  life  must  be 


240    THE    HISTORY    AND    HEROES    OP    MEDICINE. 

led,  tliat  he  laboured  and  thought.  This  object  kept 
him  true,  made  him  able  to  discover  the  very  laws  of 
discovery ;  brought  him  so  far  into  rapport  with  the 
heart  of  nature  herself,  that,  like  a  physical  prophet, 
his  seeing  could  outspeed  his  knowing,  and  behold  a 
law — dimly,  it  is  true,  but  yet  behold  it — long  before 
his  intellect,  which  had  to  build  bridges  and  find  straw 
to  make  the  bricks,  could  dare  to  affirm  its  approach  to 
the  same  conclusion.  Truth  to  humanity  made  him 
true  to  fact;  and  truth  to  fact  made  him  true  in 
theory. 

It  was  in  this  spirit  of  devotion  to  his  kind  that  he 
said,  "  Therefore  here  is  the  deficience  which  I  find, 
that  physicians  have  not  ...  set  down  and  delivered 
over  certain  experimental  medicines  for  the  cure  of 
particular  diseases." 

Dr.  EusseU  s  true  insight  into  the  relation  of  Lord 
Bacon  to  the  medical  as  well  as  to  all  science,  has  sug- 
gested the  above  remarks.  What  our  author  chiefly 
desires  is,  that  the  same  principles  which  made  medicine 
what  it  is,  should  be  allowed  to  carry  it  yet  further, 
and  make  it  what  it  ought  to  be,  and  must  become. 
As  he  goes  on  to  show,  through  succeeding  lives  and 
theories,  that  just  in  proportion  as  these  principles  have 
been  followed — the  principles  of  careful  observation, 
hypothesis,  and  experiment — have  men  made  discoveries 
that  have  been  helpful  to  their  fellow-men ;  while,  on 
the  other  hand,  the  most  elaborate  theories  of  the  most 
popular  physicians,  which  have  owed  their  birth  to 
premature  generalization  and  invention,  have  passed 
•way,  like  the  crackling  of  thorns  under  a  pot    Belong- 


THE   HISTORY   AND   HEEOES    OF   MEDICINE.    241 

lug  to  the  latter  class  of  men,  we  have  Stahl,  Hoilman, 
Boerhaave,  Cullen,  and  Brown;  while  to  the  former 
belong  Harvey,  Sydenham,  Jenner,  and  Hahnemann. 

After  the  last  name,  there  is  no  need  to  say  that 
our  author  is  a  homoeopath.  Whatever  may  be  our 
private  opinion  of  the  system,  justice  requires  that  we 
should  say  at  least  that  books  such  as  these  are  quite  aa 
open  to  refutation  as  to  ridicule  ;  for  it  is  only  a  good 
argument  that  is  worth  refuting  by  a  better.  But  we 
fear  there  are  few  books  on  this  subject  that  treat  of  it 
with  the  calmness  and  fairness  which  would  incline  an 
honest  homoeopath  to  put  them  into  the  hands  of  one 
of  the  opposite  party  as  an  exposition  of  his  opinions. 
There  is  no  excitement  in  these  pages.  They  are  the 
work  of  a  man  of  liberal  education,  of  refinement,  and 
of  truthfulness,  with  power  to  understand,  and  facility 
to  express ;  one  of  whose  main  objects  is  to  vindicate 
for  homoeopathy,  on  the  most  rightful  of  all  grounds — 
those  on  which  alone  science  can  stand — on  the  ground, 
that  is,  of  laws  discovered  by  observation  and  experi- 
ment— the  place  not  only  of  a  fact  in  the  history  of 
medicine,  but  the  right  to  be  considered  as  one  of  the 
greatest  advances  towards  the  estabhshment  of  a  science 
of  curing.  Certainly  if  he  and  the  rest  of  its  advocates 
should  fail  utterly  in  this,  the  heresy  will  yet  have 
established  for  itself  a  memorial  in  history,  as  one  of 
the  most  powerful  illusions  that  have  ever  deceived 
both  priests  and  people.  But  the  chief  advantage 
which  the  system  will  derive  from  Dr.  Eussell's  book 
will  spring,  it  seems  to  us,  from  his  attempt — a  success- 
ful one  it  must  be  confessed — to  prove  that  homceO" 


242    THE    HISTORY    AND    HEROES    OF    MEDICINE. 

pathy  is  a  development^  and  not  a  mere  reaction ;  that  it 
has  its  roots  far  down  in  the  history  of  science.  The 
first  mention  of  it  in  the  book,  however,  is  made  for 
the  purpose  of  disavowing  the  claim,  advanced  by  many 
homoeopathists,  to  Hippocrates  as  one  of  their  order. 
Not  to  mention  the  curious  story  about  Galen  and  the 
patient  ill  from  an  overdose  of  theriacum,  who  was 
cured  by  another  dose  of  the  same  substance,  nor  the 
ridicule  of  the  doctrine  of  contraries  by  Paracelsus 
and  Van  Helmont,  nor  the  fact  that  the  contraries  of 
Boerhaave,  by  his  own  explanation,  merely  signify 
whatever  substances  prove  their  contrariety  to  the 
disease  by  curing  it  —  to  pass  by  these,  we  find  one  of 
the  main  objects  of  homoeopathy,  the  discovery  of  speci- 
fics, insisted  upon  by  Lord  Bacon  in  his  words  already 
quoted.  Not  that  homoepaths,  while  they  depend 
upon  specifics,  believe  that  there  is  any  such  thing  as 
a  specific  for  a  disease— a  disease  being  as  various  as 
the  individuality  of  the  human  beings  whom  it  may 
attack;  but  that  an  approximate  specific  may  be 
found  for  every  well-defined  stage  in  every  individual 
disease ;  a  disease  having  its  process  of  change,  de- 
velopment, and  decline,  like  a  vegetable  or  animal  life. 
Besides  an  equally  strong  desire  for  specifics,  and  a 
determined  opposition  to  compound  medicines,  Boyl(^ 
who  was  bom  the  year  of  Bacon's  death,  and  in- 
herited the  mantle  of  the  great  philosopher,  manifests 
a  strong  belief  in  the  power  of  the  infinitesimal  dose. 
Neither  Bacon  nor  Boyle,  however,  were  medical  men 
by  profession.  But  Sydenham  followed  them,  accord- 
ing to  Dr.  Russell,  in  their  tendency  towards  specifics 


THE    HISTORY    AXD    HEROES    OF    MEDICINE.    243 

It  is  almost  needless  to  mention  Jenner's  victory  over 
the  small- pox  as,  in  the  eyes  of  the  homoeopaths,  a 
grand  step  in  the  development  of  their  system.  It 
gives  Dr.  Eussell  an  opportunity  of  showing  in  a 
strong  instance  that  the  best  discoveries  for  delivermg 
mankind  from  those  ills  even  of  which  they  ^re  most 
sensible  have  been  received  with  derision,  with  more 
than  bare  unbelief.  This  is  one  of  his  objects  in  the 
book,  and  while  it  is  no  proof  whatever  of  the  truth 
of  homcepathy,  it  shows  at  least  that  the  opposition 
manifested  to  it  is  no  proof  of  its  falsehood.  This  is 
enough ;  for  it  seeks  to  be  tried  on  its  own  merits ; 
and  its  foes  are  bound  to  accord  it  this  when  it  is 
advocated  in  such  an  honest  and  dignified  manner  as  in 
the  book  before  us. 

The  need  of  man,  in  physics  as  well  as  in  higher 
things,  is  the  guide  to  trutL  With  evils  of  any  sort 
we  need  no  further  acquaintance  than  may  be  gained  in 
the  endeavour  to  combat  them.  The  discovery  of  what 
will  cure  diseases  seems  the  only  natural  mode  of 
rising  by  generalization  to  the  discovery  of  the  laws  of 
cure  and  the  nature  of  disease. 

Those  portions  of  the  volume  which  discuss  the 
influence  of  Christianity  on  the  healing  art,  likewise 
those  relating  to  the  different  feelings  with  which  at 
different  times  in  different  countries  physicians  have 
been  regarded,  are  especially  interesting. 

The  only  portion  of  the  book  we  should  be  inclined 

to  find  fault  with,  as  to  the  quality  of  the  thought 

expended  upon  it,  is  the  dissertation   in  the  second 

chaper  on  the  ^^^  and  itvcv/ao.     "We  doubt  likewise 

R  2 


244    THE    HISTORY    AND    HEROES    OF    MEDICINE. 

whether  the  author  gives  the  ArchsBUs  of  Van  Hehiiont 
quite  fair  play;  but  these  are  questions  so  purely 
theoretical  that  they  scarcely  admit  of  discussion  here 
"We  rise  from  the  perusal  of  the  book,  whatever  may  be 
our  feelings  with  regard  to  the  truth  or  falsehood  of  the 
system  it  advocates,  with  increased  respect  for  the 
profession  of  medicine,  with  enlarged  hope  for  its 
future,  and  with  a  strong  feeling  of  the  nobility  con- 
ferred by  the  art  upon  every  one  of  its  practitioners 
who  is  ftware  of  the  dignity  of  his  calling. 


WORDSWORTH'S  POETRY. 

HE  history  of  the  poetry  of  Wordsworth  is 
a  true  reflex  of  the  man  himseK.  The 
life  of  Wordsworth  was  not  outwardly 
eventful,  but  his  inner  life  was  full  of 
confliict,  discovery,  and  progress.  His  outward 
life  seems  to  have  been  so  ordered  by  Provi- 
dence as  to  favour  the  development  of  the  poetic  life 
within.  Educated  in  the  country,  and  spending  most 
of  his  life  in  the  society  of  nature,  he  was  not  subjected 
to  those  Molent  external  changes  which  have  been  the 
lot  of  some  poeta  Perfectly  fitted  as  he  was  to  cope 
with  the  world,  and  to  fight  his  way  to  any  desired 
position,  he  chose  to  retire  from  it,  and  in  solitude  to 
work  out  what  appeared  to  him  to  be  the  true  destiny 
of  his  life. 

The  very  element  in  which  the  mind  of  Wordsworth 
lived  and  moved  was  a  Christian  pantheism.  Allow 
me  to  explain  the  word.  The  poets  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment speak  of  everything  as  being  the  work  of  Q-od's 
hand : — We  are  the  "  work  of  his  hand  j"  "  The  world 

>  Delivered  extempore  at  Manchester. 


246 

was  made  by  him."  But  in  the  New  Testament  there 
is  a  higher  form  used  to  express  the  relation  in  which 
we  stand  to  him — "  We  are  his  ofifspring ;"  not  the 
work  of  his  hand,  but  the  children  that  came  forth 
from  his  heart.  Our  own  poet  G-oldsmith,  with  the 
high  instinct  of  genius,  speaks  of  Q-od  as  having  "  loved 
us  into  being."  Now  I  think  this  is  not  only  true  with 
regard  to  man,  but  true  likewise  with  regard  to  the 
world  in  which  we  live.  This  world  is  not  merely  a 
thing  which  God  hath  made,  subjecting  it  to  laws  j  but 
it  is  an  expression  of  the  thought,  the  feeling,  the  heart 
of  God  himself.  And  so  it  must  be ;  because,  if  man  be 
the  child  of  God,  would  he  not  feel  to  be  out  of  his 
element  if  he  lived  in  a  world  which  came,  not  from 
the  heart  of  God,  but  only  from  his  hand?  This 
Christian  pantheism,  this  belief  that  God  is  in  every- 
thing, and  showing  himself  in  everything,  has  been  much 
brought  to  the  light  by  the  poets  of  the  past  generation, 
and  has  its  influence  still,  I  hope,  upon  the  poets  of  the 
present.  We  are  not  satisfied  that  the  world  should 
be  a  proof  and  varying  indication  of  the  intellect  of 
God.  That  was  how  Paley  viewed  it.  He  taught  us 
to  believe  there  is  a  God  from  the  mechanism  of  the 
world.  But,  allowing  all  the  argument  to  be  quite 
correct,  what  does  it  prove  ?  A  mechanical  God,  and 
nothing  more. 

Let  us  go  further ;  amd,  looking  at  beauty,  believe 
that  God  is  the  first  of  artists  ;  that  he  has  put  beauty 
into  nature,  knowing  how  it  will  affect  us,  and  intend- 
ing that  it  should  so  affect  us ;  that  he  has  embodied 
his  own  grand  thoughts  thus  that  we  might  see  them 


Wordsworth's  poetry.  247 

and  be  glad.  Then,  let  us  go  further  still,  and  believe 
that  whatever  we  feel  in  the  highest  moments  of  truth 
shining  thi'ough  beauty,  whatever  comes  to  our  souls 
as  a  power  of  life,  is  meant  to  be  seen  and  felt  by  us, 
and  to  be  regarded  not  as  the  work  of  his  hand,  but  as 
the  flowing  forth  of  his  heart,  the  flowing  forth  of  his 
love  of  us,  making  us  blessed  in  the  union  of  his  heart 
and  ours. 

Now,  Wordsworth  is  the  high  priest  of  nature  thus'i 
regarded.  He  saw  God  present  everywhere ;  not 
always  immediately,  in  his  own  form,  it  is  true ;  but 
whether  he  looked  upon  the  awful  mountain-peak, 
sky-encompassed  with  loveliness,  or  upon  the  face  of 
a  little  child,  which  is  as  it  were  eyes  in  the  face  of 
nature  in  all  things  he  felt  the  solemn  presence  of  the 
Divine  Spirit.  By  Keats  this  presence  was  recognized 
only  as  the  spirit  of  beauty  ;  to  Wordsworth,  God,  as 
the  Spirit  of  Truth,  was  manifested  through  the  forms  of 
the  external  world.  ~~ 

I  have  said  that  the  life  of  Wordsworth  was  so 
ordered  as  to  bring  this  out  of  him,  in  the  forms  of  his 
art,  to  the  ears  of  men.  In  childhood  even  his  con- 
science was  partly  developed  through  the  influences  of 
nature  upon  him.  He  thus  retrospectively  describes 
this  special  influence  of  nature  :  — 

One  summer  evening  (led  by  her)  I  found 
A  little  boat,  tied  to  a  willow  tree, 
Within  a  rocky  cave,  its  usual  home. 
Straight  I  unloosed  her  chain,  and  stepping  in, 
Pushed  from  the  shore.     It  was  an  act  of  stealth, 
And  troubled  pleasure,  nor  without  the  voice 
Of  mountain  echoes  did  my  boat  move  on, 


248  Wordsworth's  poetry. 

Leaving  behind  her  still,  on  either  side, 

Small  circles  glittering  idly  in  the  moon. 

Until  they  melted  all  into  one  track 

Of  sparkling  light.    But  now,  like  one  who  rowi 

Proud  of  his  skill,  to  reach  a  chosen  point 

With  an  unswerving  line,  I  fixed  my  view 

Upon  the  summit  of  a  craggy  ridge, 

The  horizon's  utmost  boundary ;  far  above 

Was  nothing  but  the  stars  and  the  grey  sT^, 

She  was  an  elfin  pinnace ;  lustily 

I  dipped  my  oars  into  the  silent  lake, 

And,  as  I  rose  upon  the  stroke,  my  boat 

Went  heaving  through  the  water  like  a  swan  j 

When,  from  behind  that  craggy  steep,  till  then 

The  horizon's  bound,  a  huge  peak,  black  and  hng% 

As  if  with  voluntary  power  instinct, 

Upreared  its  head.     I  struck  and  struck  again, 

And,  growing  still  in  stature,  the  grim  shape 

Towered  ap  between  me  and  the  stars,  and  still 

For  so  it  seemed,  with  purpose  of  its  own, 

And  measured  motion  like  a  living  thing. 

Strode  after  me.     With  trembling  oars  I  turnedy 

And  through  the  silent  water  stole  my  way 

Back  to  the  covert  of  the  willow  tree  j 

There  in  her  mooring  place  I  left  my  bark. 

And  through  the  meadows  homeward  went,  in  gravt 

And  serious  mood ;  but  after  I  had  seen 

That  spectacle,  for  many  days,  my  brain 

Worked  with  a  dim  and  undetermined  sense 

Of  unknown  modes  of  being  j  o'er  my  thoughts 

There  hung  a  darkness,  call  it  solitude, 

Or  blank  desertion.     No  familiar  shapes 

Remained,  no  pleasant  images  of  trees, 

Of  sea,  or  sky,  no  colours  of  green  fields; 

But  huge  and  mighty  forms,  that  do  not  live 

Like  living  men,  moved  slowly  through  the  mind 

By  day,  and  were  a  trouble  to  my  dreams. 

Here  we  see  that  a  fresh  impulse  was  given  to  his  Uft 


woedstvoeth's  poetry.  249 

even  in  boyhood,  by  the  influence  of  nature.  If  we 
have  had  any  similar  experience,  we  shall  be  able  to 
enter  into  this  feeling  of  Wordsworth's ;  if  not,  the 
tale  will  be  almost  incredible. 

One  passage  more  I  would  refer  to,  as  showing  what 
"Wordsworth  felt  with  regard  to  nature,  in  his  youth ; 
and  the  growth  that  took  place  in  him  in  consequence. 
Nature  laid  up  in  the  storehouse  of  his  mind  and  heart 
her  most  beautiful  and  grand  forms,  whence  they  might 
be  brought,  afterwards,  to  be  put  to  the  highest  human 
service.  I  quote  only  a  few  lines  from  that  poem, 
deservedly  a  favourite  -with  all  the  lovers  of  Words- 
worth, "  Lines  ^vritten  above  Tintem  Abbay ;" — 

I  cannot  paint 
What  then  I  was.     The  sounding  catai'act 
Haunted  me  like  a  passion  ;  the  tall  rock, 
The  mountain,  and  the  deep  and  gloomy  wood. 
Their  colours  and  their  forms,  were  then  to  me 
An  appetite ;  a  feeling  and  a  love, 
That  had  no  need  of  a  remoter  charm 
By  thought  supplied,  nor  any  interest 
Unborrowed  from  tlie  eye. — That  time  is  past, 
And  all  its  aching  joys  are  now  no  more. 
And  all  its  dizzy  raptures.     Not  for  this 
Faint  I,  nor  mourn  nor  murmur ;  other  gifts 
Hare  followed  ;  for  such  loss,  I  would  believe, 
Abundant  recompense.     For  I  have  learned 
To  look  on  nature,  not  as  in  the  hour 
Of  thoughtless  youth  ;  but  hearing  oftentimes 
The  still,  sad  music  of  humanity, 
Nor  harsh,  nor  grating,  though  of  ample  power 
To  chasten  and  subdue.    And  I  have  felt 
A  presence  that  disturbs  me  with  the  joy 
Of  elevated  thoughts ;  a  sense  sublime 
Of  something  far  more  deeply  interfused. 


250  woEDS worth's  poetry. 

Whose  dwelling  is  the  light  of  setting  siinB, 
And  the  round  ocean,  and  the  living  air, 
And  the  blue  sky,  and  in  the  mind  of  man| 
A  motion  and  a  spirit,  that  impels 
All  thinking  things,  all  objects  of  all  thought, 
And  rolls  through  all  things. 

In  this  little  passage  you  see  the  growth  of  the  influence 
of  nature  on  the  mind  of  the  poet.  You  observe,  too, 
that  nature  passes  into  poetry ;  that  form  is  sublimed 
into  speecL  You  see  the  result  of  the  conjunction  of 
the  mind  of  man,  and  the  mind  of  Grod  manifested  in 
His  works ;  spirit  coming  to  know  the  speech  of  spirit. 
The  outflowing  of  spirit  in  nature  is  received  by  the 
poet,  and  he  utters  again,  in  his  form,  what  Grod  has 
already  uttered  in  His.  Wordsworth  wished  to  give 
to  man  what  he  found  in  nature.  It  was  to  him  a 
power  of  good,  a  world  of  teaching,  a  strength  of  life. 
He  knew  that  nature  was  not  his,  and  that  his  enjoy- 
ment of  nature  was  given  to  him  that  he  might  give  it 
to  man.     It  was  the  birthright  of  man. 

But  what  did  Wordsworth  find  in  nature  1  To  begin 
with  the  lowest;  he  found  amusement  in  nature. 
Right  amusement  is  a  part  of  teaching;  it  is  the 
childish  form  of  teaching,  and  if  we  can  get  this  in 
mature,  we  get  something  that  lies  near  the  root  of  good. 
In  proof  that  Wordsworth  found  this,  I  refer  to  a  poem 
which  you  probably  know  well,  "  The  Daisy."  The 
poet  sits  playing  with  the  flower,  and  listening  to  the  sug- 
gestions that  come  to  him  of  odd  resemblances  that  this 
flower  bears  to  other  things.     He  likens  the  daisy  to— 

A  little  Cyclops,  with  one  eye 
gtarisg  to  threaten  and  defy, 


261 

That  thoaght  comes  next— and  instantly 

The  freak  is  over, 
The  shape  will  vanish — and  behold 
A  silver  shield  with  boss  of  gold, 
That  spreads  itself,  some  faery  bold 

In  fight  to  cover  I 

Look  at  the  last  stanza,  too,  and  yon  will  see  how  close 
amusement  may  lie  to  deep  and  earnest  thought : — 

Bright  Flower !  for  by  that  name  at  last 
When  all  my.  reveries  are  past, 
I  call  thee,  and  to  that  cleave  fast, 

Sweet  silent  creature ! 
That  breath*st  with  me  in  sun  and  air» 
Do  thou,  as  thou  art  wont,  repair 
My  heart  with  gladness,  and  a  share 

Of  thy  meek  nature ! 

But  Wordsworth  found  also  joy  in  nature,  which  is 
a  hetter  thing  than  amusement,  and  consequently  easier 
to  be  found.  We  can  often  have  joy  where  we  can 
have  no  amusement, — 

I  wandered  lonely  as  a  cloud 

That  floats  on  high  o'er  vales  and  hills^ 

When  all  at  once  I  saw  a  crowd, 
A  host,  of  golden  daflfodils  j 

Beside  the  lake,  beneath  the  trees, 

Fluttering  and  dancing  in  the  breeze* 


The  waves  beside  them  danced ;  but  they 
Out-did  the  sparkling  waves  in  glee : 

A  poet  could  not  but  be  gay. 
In  such  a  jocund  company : 

I  gazed — and  gazed— but  Uttle  thought 

What  Health  the  show  to  me  had  brought. 


252  wonDs worth's  poetet. 

**  For  oft,  when  on  my  couch  I  lie 

In  vacant  or  in  pensive  mood. 

They  flash  upon  that  inward  eye 

Which  is  the  bliss  of  solitude  j 

And  then  my  heart  with  pleasure  GJHa, 

And  dances  with  the  daflEbdils. 

This  is  the  joy  of  the  eye,  as  far  as  that  can  be 
separated  from  the  joy  of  the  whole  nature ;  for  his 
whole  nature  rejoiced  in  the  joy  of  the  eye ;  but  it 
was  simply  joy ;  there  was  no  further  teaching,  no 
attempt  to  go  through  this  beauty  and  find  the  truth 
below  it.  We  are  not  always  to  be  in  that  hungry, 
restless  condition,  even  after  truth  itself.  If  we  keep 
our  minds  quiet  and  ready  to  receive  truth,  and  some- 
times are  hungry  for  it,  that  is  enough. 

Q-oing  a  step  higher,  you  will  find  that  he  sometimes 
draws  a  lesson  from  nature,  seeming  almost  to  force  a 
meaning  from  her.  I  do  not  object  to  this,  if  he  does 
not  make  too  much  of  it  as  existing  in  nature.  It  is 
rather  finding  a  meaning  in  nature  that  he  brought  to 
it.  The  meaning  exists,  if  not  there.  For  illustration 
I  refer  to  another  poem.  Observe  that  Wordsworth 
found  the  lesson  because  he  looked  for  it,  and  would 

find  it. 

This  Lawn,  a  carpet  all  alive 

With  shadows  flung  from  leaves — to  strive 

In  dance,  amid  a  press 
Of  sunshine,  an  apt  emblem  yields 
Of  Worldlings  revelling  in  the  fields 

Of  strenuous  idleness. 
•  *  *  #  • 

Yet,  spite  of  all  this  eager  strife, 
This  ceaseless  play,  the  genuine  life 

That  serves  the  steadfast  honri^ 


Wordsworth's  poetry.  253 

Is  in  the  grass  beneath,  that  grows 
Unheeded,  and  the  mute  repose 

Of  sweetly-breathing  flowers. 

Wlietlier  he  forced  this  lesson  from  nature,  or  not,  it  is 
a  good  lesson,  teaching  a  great  many  tilings  with  regard 
to  life  and  work. 

Again,  nature  sometimes  flashes  a  lesson  on  his  mind  ; 
gives  it  to  him—  and  when  nature  gives,  we  cannot  but 
receive.     As  in  this  somiet  composed  dm-ing  a  storm, — 

One  who  was  sufiering  tumult  in  his  soul 

Yet  failed  to  seek  the  sure  relief  of  prayer, 

Went  forth  ;  his  course  surrendering  to  the  care 

Of  the  fierce  wind,  while  mid-day  lightnings  prowl 

Insiduously,  untimely  thunders  growl ; 

While  trees,  dim-seen,  in  frenzied  numbers  tear 

The  lingering  remnant  of  their  yellow  hair, 

And  shivering  wolves,  surprised  with  darkness,  howl 

As  if  the  sun  were  not.     He  raised  his  eye 

Soul-smitten  ;  for,  that  instant,  did  appear 

Large  space  (mid  dreadful  clouds)  of  purest  sky. 

An  azure  disc — shield  of  Tranquillity; 

Invisible,  unlooked-for,  minister 

Of  pi'ovidential  goodness  ever  nigh ! 

Observe  that  he  was  not  looking  for  this ;  he  had 
not  thought  of  praying ;  he  was  in  such  distress  that  it 
had  benumbed  the  out-goings  of  his  spirit  towards  the 
source  whence  alone  sure  comfort  comes.  He  went  out 
into  the  storm ;  and  the  uproar  in  the  outer  world  was 
in  harmony  with  the  tumult  within  his  soul.  Suddenly 
a  clear  space  in  the  sky  makes  him  feel— he  has  no 
time  to  think  about  it — that  there  is  a  shield  of  tran- 
quillity spread  over  him.     For  was  it  not  as  it  were  an 


254  woedsworth's  poetry. 

opening  up  into  that  region  -where  there  are  no  storms ; 
the  regions  of  peace,  because  the  regions  of  love,  and 
truth,  and  purity, — the  home  of  Grod  himself  ? 

There  is  yet  a  higher  and  more  sustained  influence 
exercised  by  nature,  and  that  takes  effect  when  she 
puts  a  man  into  that  mood  or  condition  in  which 
thoughts  '  come  of  themselves.  That  is  perhaps  the 
best  thing  that  can  be  done  for  us,  the  best  at  least 
that  nature  can  do.  It  is  certainly  higher  than  mere 
intellectual  teaching.  That  nature  did  this  for  Words- 
worth is  very  clear ;  and  it  is  easily  intelligible.  If 
the  world  proceeded  from  the  imagination  of  Grod,  and 
man  proceeded  from  the  love  of  God,  it  is  easy  to  be- 
lieve that  that  which  proceeded  from  the  imagination 
of  Grod  should  rouse  the  best  thoughts  in  the  mind  of 
a  being  who  proceeded  from  the  love  of  God.  This  I 
think  is  the  relation  between  man  and  the  world.  As 
an  instance  of  what  I  mean,  I  refer  to  one  of  Words- 
worth's finest  poems,  which  he  classes  under  the  head 
of  "Evening  Voluntaries."  It  was  composed  upon  an 
evening  of  extraordinary  splendour  and  beauty : — 

Had  this  effulgence  disappeared 
With  flying  haste,  I  might  have  sent, 
Among  the  speechless  clouds,  a  look 
Of  blank  astonishment ; 
But  'tis  endued  with  power  to  stay. 
And  sanctify  one  closing  day, 
That  frail  Mortality  may  see — 
What  is  ? — ah  no,  but  what  c<m  be ! 
Time  was  when  field  and  watery  coTd 
With  modulated  echoes  rang, 
While  choirs  of  fervent  Angels  Ban« 
Their  vespers  ia  the  grove; 


woedsworth's  poetry.  255 

Or,  crowning,  star-like,  each  some  sovereign  height, 
Warbled,  for  heaven  above  and  earth  below. 
Strains  suitable  to  both.     Such  holy  rite, 
Methinks,  if  audibly  repeated  now 
From  hill  or  valley,  could  not  move 
Sublimer  transport,  purer  love, 
Than  doth  this  silent  spectacle — the  gleam— 
'Kie  shadow — and  the  peace  supreme ! 

No  sound  is  uttered, — but  a  deep 
And  solemn  harmony  pervades 
The  hollow  vale  from  steep  to  steep, 
And  penetrates  the  glades. 
*  #  *  *  • 

Wings  at  my  shoulders  seem  to  play ; 

But,  rooted  here,  I  stand  and  gaze 

On  those  bright  steps  that  heaven- ward  raiae 

Their  practicable  way. 

Come  forth,  ye  drooping  old  men,  look  abroad, 

And  see  to  what  fair  countries  ye  are  bound  ! 

•  •  #  *  « 

Dread  Power  !  whom  peace  and  calmness  serve 
No  less  than  Nature's  threatening  voice. 
From  Thee,  if  I  would  swerve, 
Oh,  let  Thy  grace  remind  me  of  the  light 
Full  early  lost,  and  fruitlessly  deplored ; 
Which,  at  this  moment,  on  my  waking  sight 
Appears  to  shine,  by  miracle  restored  j 
My  soul,  though  yet  confined  to  earth, 
Eejoices  in  a  second  birth  ! " 

Picture  the  scene  for  yourselves ;  and  observe  how  it 
moves  in  him  the  sense  of  responsibility,  and  the 
prayer,  that  if  he  has  in  any  matter  wandered  from  the 
right  road,  if  he  has  forgotten  the  simplicity  of  child- 
hood in  the  toil  of  life,  he  may,  from  this  time,  re- 
member the  vow  that  he  now  records— from  this  time 


256 

to  press  on  towards  the  things  that  are  unseen,  but 
which  are  manifested  through  the  things  that  are  seen. 
I  refer  you  likewise  to  the  poem  "Resolution  and 
Independence, "commonly  called  "The  Leech  Gatherer;'* 
also  to  that  grandest  ode  that  has  ever  been  written, 
the  "  Ode  on  Immortality."  You  wiU  find  there, 
whatever  you  may  thiuk  of  his  theory,  in  the  latter, 
sufficient  proof  that  nature  was  to  him  a  divine  teach- 
ing power.  Do  not  suppose  that  I  mean  that  man  can 
do  without  more  teaching  than  nature's,  or  that  a  man 
with  only  nature's  teaching  would  have  seen  these 
things  in  nature.  No,  the  soul  must  be  tuned  to  such 
things.  Wordsworth  could  not  have  found  such  things, 
had  he.  not  known  something  that  was  more  definite 
and  helpful  to  him  ;  but  this  known,  then  nature  was 
fuU  of  teaching.  When  we  understand  the  Word  of 
God,  then  we  understand  the  works  of  God  ;  when  we 
know  the  nature  of  an  artist,  we  know  his  pictures ; 
when  we  have  known  and  talked  with  the  poet,  we 
understand  his  poetry  far  better.  To  the  man  of  God, 
aU  nature  will  be  but  changeful  reflections  of  the  face 
of  God. 

Loving  man  as  Wordsworth  did,  he  was  most  anxious 
to  give  him  this  teaching.  How  was  he  to  do  it  1  By 
poetry.  Nature  put  into  the  crucible  of  a  loving  heart 
becomes  poetry.  We  cannot  explain  poetry  scienti- 
fically; because  poetry  is  something  beyond  science. 
The  poet  may  be  man  of  science,  and  the  man  of 
science  may  be  a  poet ;  but  poetry  includes  science, 
and  the  man  who  will  advance  science  most,  is  the  man 
who,  other  qualifications  being  equal,  has  most  of  the 


257 


poetic  faculty  in  him.  'Wordsworth  defines  poetry  to 
be  "  the  impassioned  expression  which  is  on  the  face  of 
science."  Science  has  to  do  with  the  construction  of 
things.  The  casting  of  the  granite  ribs  of  the  mighty 
earth,  and  all  the  thousand  operations  that  result  in 
the  manifestations  on  its  surface,  this  is  the  domain 
of  science.  But  when  there  come  the  grass-bearing 
meadows,  the  heaven-reared  hills,  the  great  streams 
that  go  ever  downward,  the  bubbling  fountains  that 
ever  arise,  the  wind  that  wanders  amongst  the  leaves, 
and  the  odours  that  are  wafted  upon  its  wings  ;  when 
we  have  colour,  and  shape,  and  sound,  then  we  have 
the  material  with  which  poetry  has  to  do.  Science  has 
to  do  with  the  underwork.  For  what  does  this  great 
central  world  exist,  with  its  hidden  winds  and  waters, 
its  upheavings  and  its  downsinkings,  its  strong  frame 
of  rock,  and  its  heart  of  fire  1  What  do  they  all  exist 
for  1  Xot  for  themselves  surely,  but  for  the  sake  of 
this  out-spreading  world  of  beauty,  that  floats  up,  as  it 
were,  to  the  surface  of  the  shapeless  region  of  force 
Science  has  to  do  with  the  one,  and  poetry  with  the 
other :  poetry  is  "  the  impassioned  expression  that  is 
on  the  face  of  science."  To  illustrate  it  still  further. 
You  are  walking  in  the  woods,  and  you  find  the  first 
primrose  of  the  year.  You  feel  almost  as  if  you  had 
found  a  child.  You  know  in  yourself  that  you  have 
found  a  new  beauty  and  a  new  joy,  though  you  have 
seen  it  a  thousand  times  before.  It  is  a  primrose.  A 
little  flower  that  looks  at  me,  thinks  itself  into  my 
heart,  and  gives  me  a  pleasure  distinct  in  itself,  and 
which  I  feel  as  if  I  could  not  do  without     The  impas- 


258  Wordsworth's  poetry. 

sioned  expression  on  the  face  of  this  little  outspread 
lio-wer  is  its  childhood ;  it  means  trust,  consciousness  of 
protection,  faith,  and  hope.  Science,  in  the  person  of 
the  botanist,  conies  after  you,  and  pulls  it  to  pieces  to 
see  its  construction,  and  delights  the  intellect ;  bat  the 
science  itself  is  dead,  and  kills  what  it  touches.  The 
flower  exists  not  for  it,  but  for  the  expression  on  its 
face,  which  is  its  poetry, — that  expression  which  you 
feel  to  mean  a  living  thing ;  that  expression  which 
makes  you  feel  that  this  flower  is,  as  it  were,  just 
growing  out  of  the  heart  of  God.  The  intellect  itself 
is  but  the  scaffolding  for  the  uprearing  of  the  spiritual 
nature. 

It  will  make  all  this  yet  plainer,  if  you  can  suppose 
a  human  form  to  be  created  without  a  soul  in  it. 
Divine  science  has  put  it  together,  but  only  for  the  sake 
of  the  outshining  soul  that  shall  cause  it  to  live,  and 
move,  and  have  a  being  of  its  own  in  God.  When  you 
see  the  face  lighted  up  with  soul,  when  you  recognize 
in  it  thought  and  feeling,  joy  and  love,  then  you  know 
that  here  is  the  end  for  which  it  was  made.  Thus  you 
see  the  relation  that  poetry  has  to  science ;  and  you 
find  that,  to  speak  in  an  apparent  paradox,  the  surface 
is  the  deepest  after  all ;  for,  through  the  surface,  for  the 
sake  of  which  all  this  building  went  on,  we  have,  as  it 
were,  a  window  into  the  depths  of  truth.  There  is  not 
a  form  that  lives  in  the  worlds  but  is  a  window  cloven 
through  the  blank  darkness  of  nothingness,  to  let 
us  look  into  the  heart,  and  feeling,  and  nature  of  God. 
So  the  surface  of  things  is  the  best  and  the  deepest, 
provided  it  is  not  mere  surface,  but  the  impassioned 


Wordsworth's  poetry.  259 

expression,  for  the  sake  of  which  the  science  of  God 
has  thought  and  laboured. 

Satisfied  that  this  was  the  nature  of  poetry,  and 
wanting  to  convey  this  to  the  minds  of  his  fellow-men, 
"What  vehicle,"  Wordsworth  may  be  supposed  to 
have  asked  himself,  "  shall  I  use  ?  How  shall  I  decide 
what  form  of  words  to  employ  ?  Where  am  I  to  find 
the  right  language  for  speaking  such  great  things  to 
men  1 "  He  saw  that  the  poetry  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury (he  was  born  in  1770)  was  not  like  nature  at  all, 
but  was  an  artificial  thing,  with  no  more  originality  in 
it  than  there  would  be  in  a  picture  a  hundred  times 
copied,  the  copyists  never  reverting  to  the  original. 
You  cannot  look  into  this  eighteenth  century  poetry, 
excepting,  of  course,  a  great  proportion  of  the  poetry 
of  Cowper  and  Thompson,  without  being  struck  with 
the  sort  of  agreement  that  nothing  should  be  said 
naturafiy.  A  certain  set  form  and  mode  was  employed 
for  saying  things  that  ought  never  to  have  been  said 
twice  in  the  same  way.  Wordsworth  resolved  to  go 
back  to  the  root  of  the  thing,  to  the  natural  simplicity 
of  speech ;  he  would  have  none  of  these  stereotyped 
forms  of  expression.  "  Where  shall  I  find,"  said  he, 
"the  language  that  will  be  simple  and  powerful?" 
And  he  came  to  the  conclusion  that  the  language  of  the 
common  people  was  the  only  language  suitable  for  his 
purpose.  Your  experience  of  the  everyday  language  of 
the  common  people  may  be  that  it  is  not  poetical. 
True,  but  not  even  a  poet  can  speak  poetically  in  his 
Btupid  moments.  Wordsworth's  idea  was  to  take  the 
language  of  the  common  people  in  theii  uncommon 
s  2 


260  AVORDSWORTH'S    POETRY. 

moods,  in  their  high  and,  consequently,  simple  moods, 
when  their  minds  are  influenced  by  grief,  hope,  reve- 
rence, worship,  love  ;  for  then  he  believed  he  could  get 
just  the  language  suitable  for  the  poet.  As  far  as  that 
language  will  go,  I  think  he  was  right,  if  I  may  ven- 
ture to  give  an  opinion  in  support  of  Wordsworth.  Of 
course,  there  will  occur  necessities  to  the  poet  which 
would  not  be  comprehended  in  the  language  of  a  man 
whose  thoughts  had  never  moved  in  the  same  directions, 
but  the  kind  of  language  will  be  the  right  thing,  and  I 
have  heard  such  amongst  the  common  people  myself — 
language  which  they  did  not  know  to  be  poetic,  but 
which  fell  upon  my  ear  and  heart  as  profoundly  poetic 
both  in  its  feeling  and  its  form. 

In  attempting  to  carry  out  this  theory,  I  am  not  pre- 
pared tQ,  say  that  "Wordsworth  never  transgressed  his 
own  self-imposed  laws.  But  he  adhered  to  his  theory 
to  the  last.  A  friend  of  the  poet's  told  me  that  Words- 
worth had  to  him  expressed  his  belief  that  he  would  be 
remembered  longest,  not  by  his  sonnets,  as  his  friend 
thought,  but  by  his  lyrical  ballads,  those  for  which  he 
had  been  reviled  and  laughed  at ;  the  most  by  critics 
who  could  not  understand  him,  and  who  were  unworthy 
to  read  what  he  had  written.  As  a  proof  of  this  let  me 
read  to  you  three  verses,  composing  a  poem  that  was 
especially  marked  for  derision  : — 

She  dwelt  among  the  untrodden  ways, 

Beside  the  springs  of  Dove ; 

A  maid  whom  there  were  none  to  praisey 

And  very  few  to  love. 

A  violet  by  a  mossy  stone. 
Half  hidden  from  the  eye } 


261 

Fur  as  a  star,  when  only  one 
Is  shining  in  the  sky. 

She  lived  unknown,  and  tevr  oonld  know 
When  Lucy  ceased  to  be  j 
But  she  is  in  her  grave,  and  Oh  I 
The  difference  to  me. 

The  last  Kne  was  especially  chosen  as  the  ohject  of 
ridicule  ;  but  I  think  with  most  of  us  the  feeling  will 
be,  that  its  very  simplicity  of  expression  is  overflowing 
in  suggestion,  it  throws  us  back  upon  our  own  expe- 
rience ;  for,  instead  of  trying  to  utter  what  he  felt,  he 
says  in  those  simple  and  common  words,  *'  You  who 
have  known  anything  of  the  kind,  will  know  what  the 
difference  to  me  is,  and  only  you  can  know."  "  My 
intention  and  desire,"  he  says  in  one  of  his  essays, 
"  are  that  the  interest  of  the  poem  shall  owe  nothing 
to  the  circumstances  ;  but  that  the  circumstances  shall 
be  made  interesting  by  the  thing  itself."  In  most 
novels,  for  instance,  the  attempt  is  made  to  interest  U3 
in  worthless,  commonplace  people,  whom,  if  we  had 
our  choice,  we  would  far  rather  not  meet  at  aU,  by  sur- 
rounding them  with  peculiar  and  extraordinary  circum- 
stances ;  but  this  is  a  low  source  of  interest.  Words- 
worth was  determined  to  owe  nothing  to  such  an 
adventitious  cause.  For  illustration  allow  me  to  read 
that  well-known  little  ballad,  "  The  Reverie  of  Poor 
Susan,"  and  you  wiU  see  how  entirely  it  bears  out 
what  he  lays  down  as  his  theory.  The  scene  is  in 
London : — 

At  the  corner  of  Wood-street,  when  daylight  appears, 
Hangs  a  Thmsh  that  sings  loud,  it  has  snng  for  three  yeanii 


262  WORDSWORTH  S    POETRY. 

Poor  Susan  has  passed  by  the  spot,  and  has  heard. 
In  the  silence  of  morning,  the  song  of  the  Bird. 

'Tis  a  note  of  enchantment :  what  ails  her  ?     She 
A  mountain  ascending,  a  vision  of  trees  j 
Bright  volumes  of  vapour  through  Lothbury  glide, 
And  a  river  flows  on  through  the  vale  of  Oheapside. 

Green  pastures  she  views  in  the  midst  of  the  dale, 
Down  which  she  so  often  has  tripped  with  her  pail } 
And  a  single  small  cottage,  a  nest  like  a  dove's, 
The  one  only  dwelling  on  earth  that  she  loves. 

She  looks,  and  her  heart  is  in  heaven  :  but  they  fadOf 
The  mist  and  the  river,  the  hill  and  the  shade : 
The  stream  will  not  flow,  and  the  hill  will  not  rise, 
And  the  colours  have  all  passed  away  from  her  eyes ! 

Is  any  of  the  interest  here  owing  to  the  circumstances  1 
Is  it  not  a  very  common  incident  ?  But  has  he  not 
treated  it  so  that  it  is  not  commonplace  in  the  least  % 
We  recognize  in  this  girl  just  the  feelings  we  discover 
in  ourselves,  and  acknowledge  almost  with  tears  her 
sisterhood  to  us  alL 

I  have  tried  to  make  you  feel  something  of  what 
"Wordsworth  attempts  to  do,  but  I  have  not  given  you 
the  best  of  his  poems.  AUow  me  to  finish  by  reading 
the  closing  portion  of  the  Prelude,  the  poem  that  was 
published  after  his  death.  It  is  addressed  to  Cole- 
ridge : — 

Oh  I  yet  a  few  short  years  of  useful  life, 

And  all  will  be  complete,  thy  race  be  run, 

Thy  monument  of  glory  will  be  raised ; 

Then,  though  (too  weak  to  head  the  ways  of  trnfh) 

This  age  £fkll  back  to  old  idolatry, 


POETRY.  263 

Though  men  return  to  servitude  as  fast 

As  the  tide  ebbs,  to  ignominy  and  shame 

By  nations  sink  together,  we  shall  still 

Find  solace — knowing  what  we  have  learnt  to  know— 

Kich  in  true  happiness,  if  allowed  to  be 

Faithful  alike  in  forwarding  a  day 

Of  firmer  trust,  joint  labourers  in  the  work 

(Should  Providence  such  grace  to  us  vouchsafe) 

Of  their  deliverance,  surely  yet  to  come. 

Prophets  of  Nature,  we  to  them  will  speak 

A  lasting  inspiration,  sanctified 

By  reason,  blest  by  faith  :  what  we  have  loved, 

Others  will  love,  and  we  will  teach  them  how ; 

Instruct  them  how  the  mind  of  man  becomes 

A  thousand  times  more  beautiful  than  the  earth 

On  which  he  dwells,  above  this  frame  of  thingg 

(Which,  'mid  all  revolution  in  the  hopes 

And  fears  of  men,  doth  still  remain  unchanged) 

In  beauty  exalted,  as  it  is  itself 

Of  quality  and  fabric  more  divine. 


SHELLEY. 

HATEYER  opinion  may  be  held  with 
regard  to  the  relative  position  occupied 
by  Shelley  as  a  poet,  it  will  be  granted 
by  most  of  those  who  have  studied  his 
writings,  that  they  are  of  such  an  individual  and 
original  kind,  that  he  can  neither  be  hidden  in  the 
shade,  nor  lost  in  the  brightness,  of  any  other  poet 
No  idea  of  his  works  could  be  conveyed  by  instituting 
a  comparison,  for  he  does  not  sufficiently  resemble  any 
other  among  English  writers  to  make  such  a  comparison 
possible. 

Percy  Bysshe  Shelley  was  bom  at  Field  Place,  near 
Horsham,  in  the  county  of  Sussex,  on  the  4th  of 
August,  1792.  He  was  the  son  of  Timothy  Shelley, 
Esq.,  and  grandson  of  Sir  Bysshe  Shelley,  the  first 
baronet.  His  ancestors  had  long  been  large  landed 
proprietors  in  Sussex. 

As  a  child  his  habits  were  noticeable.  He  was 
especially  fond  of  rambling  by  moonlight,  of  inventing 
wonderful  tales,  of  occupying  himself  with  strange,  and 
sometimes  dangerous,  amusements.  At  the  age  of 
thirteen  he  went  to  Eton.  In  this  little  world,  that 
determined  opposition  to  whatever  appeared  to  him 
an  invasion  of  human  rights  and  liborty,  which  was 


SHELLEY.  265 

afterwards  the  animating  principle  of  most  of  his 
writings,  was  first  roused  ia  the  mind  of  Shelley.  "Were 
we  not  aM'are  of  far  keener  distress,  which  he  after- 
wards endured  from  yet  greater  injustice,  we  might 
suppose  that  the  sufferings  he  had  to  bear  from  placing 
himself  in  opposition  to  the  custom  of  the  school,  by 
refusing  to  fag,  had  made  him  morbidly  sensitive  on 
the  point  of  liberty.  At  a  time,  however,  when  free- 
dom of  speech,  as  indicating  freedom  of  thought,  was 
especially  obnoxious  to  established  authorities ;  when 
no  allowance  could  be  made  on  the  score  of  youth,  still 
less  on  that  of  individual  peculiarity,  Shelley  became  a 
student  at  Oxford.  He  was  then  eighteen,  devoted  to 
metaphysical  speculation,  and  especially  fond  of  logical 
discussion,  he,  in  his  first  year,  printed  and  distributed 
among  the  authorities  and  members  of  his  college  a 
pamphlet,  if  that  can  be  called  a  pamphlet  which  con- 
sisted only  of  two  pages,  in  which  he  opposed  the  usual 
arguments  for  the  existence  of  a  Deity;  arguments 
which,  perhaps,  the  most  ardent  believers  have  equally 
considered  inconclusive.  Whether  Shelley  wrote  this 
pamphlet  as  an  embodiment  of  his  own  opinions,  or 
merely  as  a  logical  confutation  of  certain  arguments, 
the  mode  of  procedure  adopted  with  him  was  certainly 
not  one  which  necessarily  resulted  from  the  position  of 
those  to  whose  care  the  education  of  his  opinions 
was  entrusted.  Without  waiting  to  be  assured  that 
he  was  the  author,  and  satisfying  themselves  with  his 
refusal  to  answer  when  questioned  as  to  the  authorship, 
they  handed  him  his  sentence  of  expulsion,  which  had 
been  already  drawn  up  in  due  f  oim. 


266  siii:li.ey. 

About  this  time  Shelley  wrote,  or  cpmrnenced  writing, 
Queen  Mah^  a  poem,  which  he  never  published, 
although  he  distributed  copies  amongst  his  friends.  In 
after-years  he  had  such  a  low  opinion  of  it  in  every 
respect,  that  he  regretted  having  printed  it  at  all ;  and 
when  an  edition  of  it  was  published  without  his  con- 
sent, he  appHed  to  the  Court  of  Chancery  for  an  injunc- 
tion to  suppress  it. 

Shelley's  opinions  in  politics  and  theology,  which  he 
appears  to  have  been  far  more  anxious  to  maintain  than 
was  consistent  with  the  peace  of  the  household,  were 
peculiarly  obnoxious  to  his  father,  a  man  as  different 
from  his  son  as  it  is  possible  to  conceive  ;  and  his  ex- 
pulsion from  Oxford  was  soon  followed  by  exile  from  his 
home.  He  went  to  London,  where,  through  his  sisters, 
who  were  at  school  in  the  neighbourhood,  he  made  the 
acquaintance  of  Harriet  Westbrook,  whom  he  eloped 
with  and  married,  when  he  was  nineteen  and  she 
sixteen  years  of  age.  It  seems  doubtful  whether  the 
attachment  between  them  was  more  than  the  result  of 
the  reception  accorded  by  the  enthusiasm  of  the  girl  to 
the  enthusiasm  of  the  youth,  manifesting  itself  in  wild 
talk  about  human  rights,  and  equally  wild  plans  for 
their  recovery  and  security.  However  this  may  be, 
the  result  was  unfortunate.  They  wandered  about 
England,  Scotland,  and  Ireland,  with  frequent  and 
sudden  chauge  of  residence,  for  rather  more  than  two 
years.  During  this  time  Shelley  gained  the  friendship 
of  some  of  the  most  eminent  men  of  the  age ;  of  whom 
the  one  who  exercised  the  most  influence  upon  his 
character  and  future  history  was   William  Godwin. 


SHELLEY.  267 

The  instructions  and  expostulations  of  tliis  eminent 
writer  tended  to  reduce  to  solidity  and  form  the  vague 
and  extravagant  opinions  and  projects  of  the  youthful 
reformer.  Shortly  after  the  commencement  of  the 
third  year  of  their  married  life,  an  estrangement  of 
feeling,  which  had  been  gradually  widening  between 
him  and  his  wife,  resulted  in  their  final  separation.  We 
are  not  informed  as  to  the  causes  of  this  estrangement, 
further  than  that  it  seems  to  have  been  owing,  in  a  con- 
siderable degree,  to  the  influence  of  an  elder  sister  of  Mrs. 
Shelley,  who  domineered  over  her,  and  whose  presence 
became  atdast  absolutely  hateful  to  Shelley.  His  wife 
returned  to  her  father's  house,  where,  apparently,  about 
three  years  after,  she  committed  suicide.  There  seems 
to  have  been  no  immediate  connexion  between  this 
act  and  any  conduct  of  Shelley.  One  of  his  biographers 
informs  us,  that  while  they  were  living  happily  together, 
suicide  was  a  favourite  subject  of  speculation  and  con- 
versation with  Mrs.  Shelley. 

Shortly  after  his  first  wife's  death,  Shelley  married 
the  daughter  of  William  G-odwin,  with  whom  he  had 
lived  almost  from  the  date  of  the  separation.  During 
this  time  they  had  twice  visited  Switzerland.  In  the 
following  year  (1817),  it  was  decreed  in  Chancery  that 
Shelley  was  not  a  proper  person  to  take  charge  of  his 
two  children,  left  by  his  first  wife.  These  had  lived 
with  her  after  the  separation,  and  the  bill  was  filed  in 
Chancery  by  their  grandfather.  The  efi'ects  of  this 
proceeding  upon  Shelley  may  be  easily  imagined. 
Perhaps  he  never  recovered  from  them  ;  for  they  were 
not  of  a  nature  to  pass  away.     During  this  year  he 


268  SHELLEY. 

resided  at  Marlow,  and  wrote  The  Revolt  of  Islam, 
besides  portions  of  other  poems.  In  the  following 
year  (1818)  he  left  England,  not  to  return.  The  state 
of  his  health,  for  he  had  appeared  to  be  in  a  consump- 
tion for  some  time,  joined  with  the  fear  lest  his  son,  by 
his  second  wife,  should  be  taken  from  him,  was  such 
as  to  lead  him  to  take  refuge  in  Italy  from  both  im- 
pending evils.  At  Lucia  he  began  his  Frometheus, 
and  wrote  Julian  and  Maddalo.  He  moved  from 
place  to  place  in  Italy,  as  he  had  done  in  his  own 
country.  Their  two  children  dying,  they  were  for  a 
time  left  childless;  but  the  loss  of  these  grieved 
Shelley  less  than  that  of  his  eldest  two,  who  were 
taken  from  him  by  the  hand  of  man.  In  1819  SheUey 
finished  his  Prometheus  TJnhound,  writing  the  greater 
part  at  Rome,  and  completing  it  at  Florence.  In  this 
year  also  he  wrote  his  tragedy,  The  Genci.  This  attracted 
more  attention  during  his  lifetime  than  any  other 
of  his  works.  The  "  Ode  to  a  Skylark  "  was  written 
at  Leghorn  in  the  Spring  of  1820  ;  and  in  August  of 
the  same  year,  the  Witch  of  Atlas  was  written  near 
Pisa.  In  the  following  year  Shelley  and  Byron  met 
at  Pisa.  They  were  a  good  deal  together ;  but  their 
friendship,  although  real,  does  not  appear  to  have  been 
of  a  very  profound  nature.  Though  unlikeness  be  one 
of  the  necessary  elements  of  friendship,  there  are  kinds 
of  unlikeness  which  will  not  harmonize.  During  all 
this  time  he  was  not  only  maligned  by  unknown 
enemies,  and  abused  by  'anonymous  writers,  but 
attempts  of  otlier  kinds  were  made  to  render  his  life 
as  uncomfortable  as  possible.     His  lifej  however,  waa 


SHELLEY.  269 

drawing  to  its  close.  In  1821  lie  wrote  his  **  Adonais," 
a  monody  on  the  death  of  Keats.  Part  of  this  poem 
is  owing  to  tlie  mistaken  notion,  that  the  illness  and 
death  of  Keats  were  caused  by  a  brutal  criticism  of  his 
"  Endymion,"  which  appeared  in  the  Quarterly  Review, 
The  last  verse  of  this  poem  seems  almost  prophetic 
of  his  own  end.  Passionately  fond  of  boating,  he  and 
a  friend  of  his,  Mr.  Williams,  united  in  constructing  a 
boat  of  a  peculiar  build  j  a  very  fast  sailer,  but  difficult 
to  manage.  On  the  8th  of  July,  1822,  Shelley  and  Ms 
friend  Williams  sailed  from  Leghorn  for  Lerici,  on  the 
Bay  of  Spezia,  near  which  was  his  home  for  the  time. 
A  sudden  squall  came  on,  and  their  boat  disappeared. 
The  bodies  of  the  two  friends  were  cast  on  shore ;  and, 
according  to  quarantine  regulations,  were  burned  to 
ashes.  Lord  Byron,  Leigh  Hunt,  and  Mr.  Trelawney 
were  present  at  the  ceremony ;  so  that  the  ashes  of 
Shelley  were  saved,  and  buried  in  the  Protestant  burial 
ground  at  Eome,  near  the  grave  of  Keats,  who  was 
laid  there  in  the  spring  of  the  preceding  year.  Cor 
Cordumo  were  the  words  inscribed  by  his  widow  on 
the  tomb  of  the  poet. 

The  character  of  Shelley  has  lit  en  sadly  maligned. 
Whatever  faults  he  may  have  committed  against  society, 
they  were  not  the  result  of  sensuality.  One  of  his 
biographers,  who  was  his  companion  at  Oxford,  and 
who  does  net  seem  inclined  to  do  him  more  than 
justice,  asserts  that  while  there  his  conduct  was  im- 
maculate. The  whole  picture  he  gives  of  the  youth 
makes  it  easy  to  believe  this.  To  discuss  the  moral 
question  involved  in  one  part  of  his  history  would  be 


270  SHELLEY. 

out  of  place  here ;  but  on  the  supposition,  even  that  a 
man's  conduct  is  altogether  inexcusable  in  individual 
instances,  there  is  the  more  need  that  nothing  but  the 
truth  should  be  said  concerning  that,  and  other  portions 
thereof.  And  whatever  society  may  have  thought 
itself  justified  in  making  subject  of  reprobation,  it 
must  be  remembered  that  Shelley  was  under  less 
obligation  to  society  than  most  men.  Yet  his  heart 
seemed  full  of  love  to  his  kind ;  and  the  distress  which 
the  oppression  of  others  caused  him,  was  the  source  of 
much  of  that  wild  denunciation  which  exposed  him  to 
the  contempt  and  hatred  of  those  who  were  rendered 
uncomfortable  by  his  unsparing  and  indiscriminating 
anathemas.  In  private  he  was  beloved  by  all  who 
knew  him ;  a  steady,  generous,  self-denying  friend, 
not  only  to  those  who  moved  in  his  own  circle,  but  to 
all  who  were  brought  within  the  reach  of  any  aid  he 
could  bestow.  To  the  poor  he  was  a  true  and  laborious 
benefactor.  That  man  must  have  been  good  to  whom 
the  heart  of  his  widow  returns  with  such  earnest  devo- 
tion and  thankfulness  in  the  recollection  of  the  past, 
and  such  fond  hope  for  the  future,  as  are  manifested 
by  Mrs.  Shelley  in  those  extracts  from  her  private 
journal  given  us  by  Lady  Shelley. 

As  regards  his  religious  opinions,  one  of  the  thoughts 
that  most  strongly  suggests  itself  is, — how  ill  he  must 
have  been  instructed  in  the  principles  of  Christianity. 
"  Indeed,"  he  says  himself  in  a  letter  to  Godwin,  "  I 
have  known  no  tutor  or  adviser  {not  excepting  my 
father)  from  whose  lessons  and  suggestions  I  have  not 
recoiled  with  disgust"    So  ffur  is  he  from  being  an 


SHELLEY.  271 

opponent  of  Christianity,  properly  so-called,  that  one 
can  hardly  help  feeling  what  a  Christian  he  would  have 
been,  could  he  but  have  seen  it  in  any  other  way  than 
through  the  traditional  and  practical  misrepresentations 
of  it  which  surrounded  him.  All  his  attacks  on 
Christianity  are,  in  reality,  directed  against  evils  to 
which  the  true  doctrines  of  Christianity  are  more 
opposed  than  those  of  Shelley  could  possibly  be.  How 
far  it  was  right  of  him  to  give  the  name  of  Christianity 
to  what  he  might  have  seen  to  be  only  a  miserable 
perversion  of  it,  is  another  question,  and  one  which 
hardly  admits  of  discussion  here.  It  was  in  the  nawA 
ol  Christianity,  however,  that  the  worst  injuries  of 
which  he  had  to  complain  were  inflicted  upon  him. 
Coming  out  of  the  cathedral  at  Pisa  one  day,^  Shelley 
warmly  assented  to  a  remark  of  Leigh  Hunt,  "  that  a 
divine  religion  might  be  found  out,  if  charity  were 
really  made  the  principle  of  it  instead  of  faith."  Surely 
the  founders  of  Christianity,  even  when  they  magnified 
faith,  intended  thereby  a  spiritual  condition,  of  which 
the  central  principle  is  coincident  with  charity.  Shelley's 
own  feelings  towards  others,  as  judged  from  his  poetry, 
seem  to  be  tinctured  with  the  very  essence  of  Chris- 
tianity.* 

1  His  Essay  on  Christianity  is  full  of  noble  views,  some  of 
■which  are  held  at  the  present  day  by  some  of  the  most  earnest 
believers.  At  what  time  of  his  life  it  was  written  we  are  not 
informed ;  but  it  seems  such  ad  would  insure  his  acceptance 
with  any  company  of  intelligent  and  devout  Unitarians. 

2  From  Shelley  Memorials,  edited  by  Lady  Shelley,  whicdi 
the  writer  of  this  paper  has  principally  followed  in  regard  to 
the  external  facte  of  Shelley's  histoxj. 


272  SHELLEY. 

^  Shelley's  religion  seems  to  have  heen  a  form  of 
Pantheism.  He  did  not,  at  one  time  at  least,  believe 
that  we  could  know  the  source  of  our  being ;  and 
seemed  to  take  it  as  a  self-evident  truth,  that  the 
Creator  could  not  be  like  the  creature.  But  it  seems 
injustice  to  fix  upon  any  utterance  of  opinion,  and 
regard  it  as  the  religion  of  a  man  who  died  in  his 
thirtieth  year,  and  whose  habits  of  thinking  were  such 
that  his  opinions  must  have  been  in  a  state  of  constant 
change.  Coleridge  says  in  a  letter :  "  His  (Shelley's) 
discussions,  tending  towards  atheism  of  a  certain  sort, 
would  not  have  scared  me  ;  for  me  it  would  have  been 
a  semi-transparent  larva,  soon  to  be  sloughed,  and 
through  which  I  should  have  seen  the  true  image — 
the  final  metamorphosis.  Besides,  I  have  ever  thought 
that  sort  of  atheism  the  next  best  religion  to  Chris- 
tianity ;  nor  does  the  better  faith  I  have  learned  from 
Paul  and  John  interfere  with  the  cordial  reverence  I 
feel  for  Benedict  Spinoza."  N 

Shelley's  favourite  study  was  metaphysics.  The 
more  impulse  there  is  in  any  direction,  the  more 
education  and  experience  are  necessary  to  balance  that 
impulse  ;  and  one  cannot  help  thinking  that  Shelley's 
taste  for  exercises  of  this  kind  was  developed  more 
rapidly  than  the  corresponding^oz^er.  His  favourite  phy- 
sical studies  were  chemistry  and  electricity.  With  these 
he  occupied  himself  from  his  childhood,  apparently, 
however,  with  more  delight  in  the  experiments  them- 
selves, than  interest  in  the  general  conclusions  to  be 
arrived  at  by  means  of  them.  In  the  embodiment  of 
his  metaphysical  ideas  in  poetiy,  the  influence  of  these 


SHELLEY.  273 

studies  seems  to  appear.  For  the  forms  chosen  are  of 
an  exi-irnal  physical  kind,  belonging,  in  their  association 
with  the  idea,  to  the  realm  of  the  fancy  rather  than 
chosen  by  the  imaginative  power,  because  of  an  inward 
vital  resemblance.  Logic  had  considerable  attractions 
for  him.  To  geometry  and  mathematics  he  was  quite 
indifferent.  One  of  his  biographers  states,  that  "  he 
was  neglectful  of  flowers,"  because  he  had  no  interest 
in  botany ;  but  one  who  derived  such  full  delight 
from  the  contemplation  of  their  external  forms,  could  ; 
hardly  be  expected  to  feel  very  strongly  the  impulse  to 
dissect  and  explore.  He  derived  exceeding  pleasure 
from  the  Grreek,  especially  from  the  works  of  Plato. 

Several  little  peculiarities  in  Shelley's  tastes  are 
worth  mentioning,  because  they  seem  to  correspond  so 
well  with  the  nature  of  his  poetry,  although  in  them- 
selves they  are  insignificant.  Perhaps  the  most 
prominent  of  these  was  his  passion  for  boat-sailing,  / 
He  could  not  pass  any  piece*' of  water  without  launching 
upon  it  a  number  of  boats,  constructed  from  what 
paper  he  could  find  in  his  pockets.  The  fly-leaves  of 
the  books  he  was  in  the  habit  of  carrying  with  him, 
for  he  was  constantly  reading,  often  went  to  this  end- 
He  would  watch  the  fate  of  these  boats  with  the 
utmost  interest,  till  they  sank  or  reached  the  opposite 
side.  He  was  just  as  fond  of  real  boating,  and  that 
frequently  of  a  dangerous  kind.  Pistol-shooting  was  ? 
also  a  favourite  amusement.  Fire-works,  too,  gave  him 
great  delight.  Some  of  his  habits  were  likewise  peculiar. 
He  was  remarkably  abstemious,  preferring  bread  and 
raisins  to  anything  else  in  the  way  of  eating,  and  f eiy 

T 


274  SHELLEY. 

seldom  drinking  anything  stronger  tlian  water.  Honey 
was  a  favourite  luxury  with  him.  While  at  college, 
his  biographer  Hogg  says,  he  was  in  the  habit,  during 
the  evening,  of  going  to  sleep  on  the  rug,  close  to  a 
blazing  fire,  heat  seeming  never  to  have  other  than  a 
beneficial  efiect  upon  him.  After  sleeping  some  hoars 
he  would  awake  perfectly  restored,  and  continue 
actively  occupied  till  far  into  the  morning.  Indeed,  he 
seemed  to  have  more  than  the  usual  dislike  to  going  to 
bed.  His  whole  movements  are  represented  as  rapid, 
hurried,  and  uncertain.  He  would  appear  and  dis- 
appear suddenly  and  unexpectedly;  forget  appoint- 
ments; burst  into  wild  laughter,  heedless  of  his 
situation,  whenever  anything  struck  him  as  peculiarly 
ludicrous.  His  changes  of  residence  were  most  nume- 
rous, and  frequently  made  with  so  much  haste  that 
_wliole  little  libraries  were  left  behind,  and  often  lost. 
He  was  very  fond  of  children,  and  used  to  make 
humorous  efforts  to  induce  them  to  disclose  to  him 
the  still  remembered  secrets  of  pre-existence.  He 
seemed  to  have  a  peculiar  attraction  towards  the  un- 
known, and  was  ready  to  believe  there  was  a  secret 
hidden,  where  no  one  else  would  have  thought  of  one. 
His  room,  while  he  was  at  college,  was  in  a  state  of 
indescribable  confusion.  Not  only  were  all  sorts  of 
personal  necessaries  mingled  with  books  and  philoso- 
phical instruments,  but  things  belonging  to  one  depart- 
ment of  service  were  not  unfrequently  pressed  into  the 
slavery  of  another.  He  dressed  well  but  carelessly.  In 
person  he  was  tall,  slender,  and  stooping ;  awkward  in 
gait,  but  in  manners  a  thorough  gentleman.     His  com- 


SHELLEY.  275 

plexion  was  delicate ;  his  head,  face,  and  features 
remarkably  small;  the  last  not  very  regular,  but  in 
expression,  both  intellectual  and  moral,  wonderfully 
beautiful.  His  eyes  were  deep  blue,  "of  a  wild, 
strange  beauty;"  his  forehead  high  and  white  ;  his  hair 
dark,  brown,  curling  long,  and  bushy.  His  appearance 
in  later  life  is  described  as  singularly  combining  the 
appearances  of  premature  age  and  prolonged  youth. 

The  only  art  in  which  his  taste  appears  to  have  been 
developed  is  that  of  poetry.  Even  in  his  poetry,  taken 
as  a  whole,  the  artistic  element  is  not  generally  very 
manifest.  His  earliest  verses  (none  of  which  are  in- 
cluded in  his  collected  works)  can  hardly  be  said  to  be 
good  in  any  sense.  He  seemed  in  these  to  find  poetry 
a  fitting  material  for  the  embodiment  of  his  ardent, 
hopeful,  indignant  thoughts  and  feelings;  and  provided 
he  could  say  what  he  wanted  to  say,  does  not  seem  to 
have  cared  much  about  the  how.  Indeed,  there  is  too 
much  of  this  throughout  his  works :  and  if  the  utter- 
ance, instead  of  the  conveyance  of  thought,  were  the 
object  sought  in  art,  of  course,  not  merely  imperfection 
of  language,  but  absolute  external  unintelligibility, 
would  be  unobjectionable.  But  his  art  constantly  in- 
creases with  his  sense  of  its  necessity;  so  that  the 
Cenci,  which  is  the  last  work  of  any  pretension  that  he 
wrote,  is  decidedly  the  most  artistic  of  all.  There  are 
beautiful  passages  in  Queen  Mai),  but  it  is  the  work  of 
a  boy-poet ;  and  as  it  was  all  but  repudiated  by  him- 
seK,  it  is  not  necessary  to  remark  further  upon  it.  The 
Revolt  of  Islam  is  a  poem  of  twelve  cantos,  in  the 
Spenserian  stanza ;  though  in  all  other  respects,  besides 
T  2 


276  SHELLEY. 

the  arrangement  of  lines  and  rhymes,  it,  In  common 
with  all  other  imitations  of  the  Spenserian  stanza,  has 
little  or  nothing  of  the  spirit  or  individuality  of  that 
stanza.  The  poem  is  dedicated  to  the  cause  ot  freedom, 
and  records  the  eiForts,  successes^  defeats,  and  final 
triumphant  death  of  two  inspired  champions  of  liberty 
— a  youth  and  maiden.  The  adventures  are  marvellous, 
not  intended  to  be  within  the  bounds  of  probability, 
scarcely  of  possibility.  There  are  very  noble  senti- 
ments and  fine  passages  throughout  the  poem.  Now 
and  then  there  is  grandeur.  But  the  absence  of  art  is 
too  evident  in  the  fact  that  the  meaning  of  portions  is 
often  obscure  ;  an  obscurity  not  unf requenllv  occasioned 
by  the  difiiculty  of  the  stanza,  which  is  the  most  diffi- 
cult mode  of  composition  in  English,  except  the  rigid 
soimet.  The  words  and  forms  he  em}>loys  to  express 
thought  seem  sometimes  mechanical  devices  for  that 
purpot;e,  rather  than  an  utterance  which  suggested  itself 
naturally  to  a  mind  where  the  thought  Avas  vitally  present. 
The  words  are  more  a  clothing  for  the  thought  than  an 
emhodlment  of  it.  They  do  not  lie  near  enough  to  the 
thing  which  is  intended  to  be  represented  by  them. 
It  is,  however,  but  just  to  remark,  that  some  of  the 
obscurity  is  owing  to  the  fact,  that,  even  with  Mrs. 
Shelley's  superintendence,  the  works  have  not  yet  been 
satisfactorily  edited,  or  at  least  not  conducted  through 
the  press  with  sufficient  care. 

The  Genci  is  a  very  powerful  tragedy,  but  unfitted 
for  public  representation  by  the  horrible  nature  of  the 
historical  facts  upon  which  it  is  founded.  In  the 
execution  of  it,  however,  Shelley  has  kept  very  much 


SHELLEY.  277 

nearer  to  nature  than  in  any  other  of  his  works.  He 
has  rigidly  adhered  to  his  perception  of  artistic  propriety 
in  respect  to  the  dramatic  utterance.  It  may  he  douhted 
whether  there  is  sufficient  difference  between  the  modes 
of  speech  of  the  different  actors  in  the  tragedy  ;  but  it 
is  quite  possible  to  individualize  speech  far  too  minutely 
forprobable nature ;  and  iu  this  respect,  at  least,  Shelley 
has  not  erred.  Ptrliaps  the  action  of  the  whole  is  a 
little  hurried,  and  a  central  moment  of  awful  repose 
and  fearful  anticipation  might  add  to  the  force  of  the 
trqgedy.  The  scenes  also  might,  perhaps,  have  been 
constructed  so  as  to  suggest  more  of  evolution;  but  the 
central  point  of  horror  is  most  powerfully  and  delicately 
handled.  You  see  a  possible  spiritual  horror  yet 
behind,  more  frightful  than  all  that  has  gone  before. 
The  whole  drama,  indeed,  is  constructed  around,  not  a 
prominent  point,  but  a  dim,  infinitely- withdrawn,  un- 
derground perspective  of  dismay  and  agony.  Perhaps 
it  detracts  a  little  from  our  interest  in  the  Lady 
Beatrice,  that,  after  all,  she  should  wish  to  live,  and 
should  seek  to  preserve  her  life  by  a  denial  of  her 
crime.  She,  however,  evidently  justifies  the  denial  to 
herself  on  the  ground  that  the  deed  being  absolutely 
right,  although  regarded  as  most  criminal  by  her  judges, 
the  only  way  to  get  true  justice  is  to  deny  the  fact,  which, 
there  being  no  guilt,  is  only  a  verbal  lie.  Her  very 
purity  of  conscience  enables  her  to  utter  this  with  the 
most  absolute  innocence  of  look,  and  word,  and  tone. 
This  is  probably  a  historical  fact,  and  Shelley  has  to 
make  the  best  of  it.  In  the  drama  there  is  great  ten- 
derness, as  weU  as  terror:  but  for  a  full  efi'ect,  one 


278  SHELLEY. 

feels  it  desirable  to  be  brouglit  better  acquainted  with 
the  individuals  than  the  drama,  from  its  want  of  gradua- 
tion, permits.  Shelley,  however,  was  only  six-and- 
twenty  when  he  wrote  it.  lie  must  have  been  attracted 
to  the  subject  by  its  embodying  the  concentration  of 
tyranny,  lawlessness,  and  brutality  in  old  Cenci,  as 
opposed  to,  and  exercised  upon,  an  ideal  loveliness  and 
nobleness  in  the  person  of  Beatrice. 
/ 1  But  of  all  Shelley's  works,  the  Prometheus  Unbound 
is  that  which  combines  the  greatest  amount  of  individual 
power  and  peculiarity.  There  is  an  airy  grandeur  about 
it,  reminding  one  of  the  vast  masses  of  cloud  scattered 
about  in  broken,  yet  magnificently  suggestive  forms, 
all  over  the  summer  sky  after  a  thunderstorm.  The 
fundamental  ideas  are  grand,  the  superstructure,  in 
many  parts,  so  ethereal,  that  one  hardly  knows  whether 
he  is  gazing  on  towers  of  solid  masonry,  rendered  dim 
and  unsubstantial  by  intervening  vapour,  or  upon  the 
golden  turrets  of  cloudland,  themselves  born  of  the 
mist  which  surrounds  them  with  a  halo  of  glory.  The 
beings  of  Greek  mythology  are  idealized  and  ethereal- 
ized  by  the  new  souls  which  he  puts  into  them, 
making  them  think  his  thoughts  and  say  his  words. 
In  reading  this,  as  in  reading  most  of  his  poetry,  we 
feel  that,  unable  to  cope  with  the  evils  and  wrongs  of 
the  world  as  it  and  they  are,  he  constructs  a  new 
universe,  wherein  he  may  rule  according  to  his  will ; 
and  a  good  will  in  the  main  it  is — good  always  in 
intent,  good  generally  in  form  and  utterance.  Of  the 
wrongs  which  Shelley  endured  from  the  collision  and 
resulting  conflict  between  his  lawless  goodness  and  the 


SHELLEY.  279 

lawful  wickedness  of  those  in  authority,  this  is  one  of 
the  greatest, — that  during  the  right  period  of  pupilage 
he  was  driven  from  the  place  of  learning,  cast  on  his 
own  mental  resources  long  before  those  resources  were 
sufficient  fox  his  support,  and  irritated  against  the 
j^urest  embodiment  of  good  by  the  harsh  treatment  he 
received  undei  its  name.  If  that  reverence,  which  was 
hv  from  wanting  to  his  nature,  had  been  only  presented 
in  the  person  of  some  guide  to  his  spiritual  being,  with 
an  object  worthy  of  its  homage  and  trust,  it  is  probable 
that  the  yet  free  and  noble  result  of  Shelley's  indivi- 
duality would  have  been  presented  to  the  world  in  a 
form  which,  while  it  attracted  still  only  the  few,  would 
not  have  repelled  the  many  ;  at  least,  not  by  what  was 
merely  accidental  in  its  association  with  his  earnest 
desires  and  efforts  for  the  well-being  of  humanity. 

That  which  chiefly  distinguishes  Shelley  from  all 
other  writers,  is  the  unequalled  exuberance  of  his 
fancy.  The  reader,  say  for  instance  in  that  fantastically 
brilliant  poem,  The  Witch  of  Atlas,  the  work  of  three 
days,  is  overwhelmed  in  a  storm,  as  it  were,  of  rainbow 
snow-flakes,  and  many-coloured  lightnings,  accompanied 
ever  by  "  a  low  melodious  thunder."  The  evidences  of 
pure  imagination  in  his  writings  are  unfrequent  as 
compared  with  those  of  fancy ;  there  are  not  half  the 
instances  of  the  direct  embodiment  of  idea  in  form, 
that  there  are  of  the  presentation  of  strange  resem- 
blances between  external  things. 

One  of  the  finest  short  specimens  of  Shelley's  pecu- 
liar mode  is  his  "  Ode  to  the  West  Wind,"  full  of 
mysterioui*  melody  of  thought  and  sound.     But  of  all 


280  SHELLEY. 

his  poems  the  most  popular,  and  deservedly  so,  is  the 
"  Skylark."  Perhaps  the  "  Cloud  "  may  contest  it  with 
the  "  Skylark  "  in  regard  to  popular  favour ;  but  the 
**  Cloud,"  although  full  of  beautiful  words  and  fantastic 
cloud-like  images,  is,  after  all,  principally  a  work  of 
the  fancy ;  while  the  "  Skylark,"  though  even  in  it 
fancy  predominates  over  imagination  in  the  visual 
images,  forms,  as  a  whole,  a  lovely,  true,  individual 
work  of  art ;  a  lyric  not  unworthy  of  the  lark^  which 
Mason  apostrophizes  as  "  sweet  feathered  lyric."  The 
strain  of  sadness  which  pervades  it  is  only  enough  to 
make  the  song  of  the  "  Lark  "  human. 

In  "  The  Sensitive  Plant,"  a  poem  full  of  the  pecu- 
liarities of  his  genius,  tending  through  a  wilderness  of 
fanciful  beauties  to  a  thicket  of  mythical  speculation, 
one  curious  idiosyncrasy  is  more  prominent  than  in  any 
other ;  curious,  as  belonging  to  the  poet  of  beauty  and 
loveliness  :  it  is  the  tendency  to  be  fascinated  by  what 
is  ugly  and  revolting,  so  that  he  cannot  withdraw  his 
thoughts  from  it  till  he  has  described  it  in  language, 
powerful,  it  is  true,  and  poetic,  when  considered  as  to 
its  fitness  for  the  desired  end,  but,  in  force  of  these 
very  excellences  in  the  means,  nearly  as  revolting  as 
the  objects  themselves.  Associated  with  this  is  the 
tendency  to  discover  strangely  unpleasant  likenesses 
between  things ;  which  likenesses  he  is  not  content  with 
seeing,  but  seems  compelled,  perhaps  in  order  to  get 
rid  of  them  himself,  to  force  upon  the  observation  of 
his  reader.  But  the  admirer  of  Shelley  is  not  pleased 
to*  find  that  one  or  two  passages  of  this  nature  have 
been  omitted  in  the  last  editions  of  his  worka. 


SHELLEY.  281 

Few  men  have  been  more  misunderstood  or  misre- 
presented than  Shelley.  Doubtless  this  has  in  part 
been  his  own  fault,  as  Coleridge  implies,  when  he 
writes  to  this  effect  of  him  :  that  his  horror  of  hypo- 
crisy made  him  speak  in  such  a  wild  way,  that  South ey 
(who  was  so  much  a  man  of  forms  and  proprieties) 
was  quite  misled,  not  merely  in  his  estimate  of  his 
worth,  but  in  his  judgment  of  his  character.  But 
setting  aside  this  consideration  altogether,  and  regard- 
ing him  merely  as  a  poet,  Shelley  has  written  verse 
which  will  last  as  long  as  the  English  literature  lasts ; 
valuable  not  only  from  its  excellence,  but  from  the 
peculiarity  of  its  excellence.  To  say  nothing  of  his 
noble  aims  and  hopes,  Shelley  will  always  be  admired 
for  his  sweet  melodies,  lovely  pictures,  and  wild  pro- 
phetic imaginings.  His  indignant  remonstrances,  in- 
termingled with  grand  imprecations,  burst  in  thunder 
from  a  heart  overcharged  with  the  love  of  his  kind, 
and  roused  to  a  keener  sense  of  all  oppression  by  the 
wrongs  which  sought  to  overwhelm  himself.  But  as 
he  recedes  further  in  time,  and  men  are  able  to  see 
more  truly  the  proportions  of  the  man,  they  will  judge, 
that  without  having  gained  the  rank  of  a  great  reformer, 
Shelley  had  in  him  that  element  of  wide  sympathy 
and  lofty  hope  for  his  kind  which  is  essential  both 
to  the  birth  and  the  subsequent  making  of  the  greatest 
of  poets. 


A  SERMON. 

Philippiaits  iii.  15,  16,— Let  us  therefore,  as  many  as  be  peifectjbe 
thus  minded;  »Jid  if  in  anything  ye  be  otherwise  minded,  God  shall  reveal 
even  this  unto  you.  Nevertheless,  whereto  we  have  already  attained, 
let  us  walk  by  that  same. 

HIS  is  the  reading  of  the  oldest  manu- 
scripts. The  rest  of  the  verse  is  pretty 
clearly  a  not  overwise  marginal  gloss  that 
has  crept  into  the  text. 
In  its  origin,  opinion  is  the  intellectual  body,  taken 
for  utterance  and  presentation  hy  something  necessarily 
larger  than  any  intellect  can  afford  stuff  sufficient  for 
the  embodiment  of.  To  the  man  himself,  therefore, 
in  whose  mind  it  arose,  an  opinion  will  always  repre- 
sent and  recaU  the  spirit  whose  form  it  is, — so  long,  at 
least,  as  the  man  remains  true  to  his  better  sell 
Hence,  a  man's  opinion  may  be  for  him  invaluable, 
the  needle  of  his  moral  compass,  always  pointing  to  the 
truth  whence  it  issued,  and  whose  form  it  is.  Nor  is 
the  man's  opinion  of  the  less  value  to  him  that  it  may 
change.  Nay,  to  be  of  true  value,  it  must  have  in  it 
not  only  the  possibility,  but  the  necessity  of  change : 
it  must  change  in  every  man  who  is  alive  with  that 
life  which,  in  the  New  Testament,  is  alone  treated  as 
life  at  all.     For,  if  a  man's  opinion  be  in  no  process  of 

1  Bead  in  the  Uiiit»rian  Ohapel,  IQsBex  Street,  London,  18791 


A    SERMON.  283 

change  whatever,  it  must  be  dead,  valueless,  hurtful 
Opinion  is  the  offspring  of  that  which  is  itself  horn  to 
grow;  which,  being  imperfect,  must  grow  or  die. 
Where  opinion  is  growing,  its  imperfections,  however 
many  and  serious,  will  do  but  little  hurt ;  where  it  is 
not  growing,  these  imperfections  will  further  the  decay 
and  corruption  which  must  already  have  laid  hold  of 
the  very  heart  of  the  man.  But  it  is  plain  in  the 
world's  history  that  what,  at  some  given  stage  of  the 
same,  was  the  embodiment  in  intellectual  form  of 
the  highest  and  deepest  of  which  it  was  then  spiritually 
capable,  has  often  and  speedily  become  the  source  of 
the  most  frightful  outrages  upon  humanity.  How  is 
this  1  Because  it  has  passed  from  the  mind  in  which 
it  grew  into  another  in  which  it  did  not  grow,  and  has 
of  necessity  altered  its  nature.  Itself  sprung  from 
that  which  was  deepest  in  the  man,  it  casts  seeds 
which  take  root  only  in  the  intellectual  understanding 
of  his  neighbour ;  and  these,  springing  up,  produce 
flowers  indeed  which  look  much  the  same  to  the  eye, 
but  fruit  which  is  poison  and  bitterness, — worst  of  it 
all,  the  false  and  arrogant  notion  that  it  is  duty  to  force 
the  opinion  upon  the  acceptance  of  others.  But  it  is 
because  such  men  themselves  hold  with  so  poor  a  grasp 
the  truth  underlying  their  forms  that  they  are,  in  their 
self-sufficiency,  so  ambitious  of  propagating  the  forms, 
making  of  themselves  the  worst  enemies  of  the  truth 
of  which  they  fancy  themselves  the  champions.  How 
truly,  in  the  case  of  all  genuine  teachers  of  men,  shall 
a  man's  foes  be  they  of  his  own  household  !  For  of 
all  tiie  destroyers  of  the  truth  which  any  man  has 


284  A  SErorox. 

pleached,  none  have  done  it  so  effectually  or  so  griev- 
ously as  his  own  followers.  So  many  of  them  have 
received  but  the  forms,  and  know  nothing  of  the  truth 
which  gave  him  those  forms  !  They  lay  hold  but  of 
the  non-essential,  the  specially  perishing  in  those 
f onus ;  and  these  aspects,  doubly  false  and  misleading 
in  their  crumbling  disjunction,  they  proceed  to  force 
upon  the  attention  and  reception  of  men,  calling  that 
the  truth  which  is  at  best  but  the  draggled  and  useless 
fringe  of  its  earth-made  garment.  Opinions  so  held 
belong  to  the  theology  of  heD, — not  necessarily  alto- 
gether false  in  form,  but  false  utterly  in  heart  and 
spirit.  The  opinion  then  that  is  hurtful  is  not  that 
\\hich  is  formed  in  the  depths,  and  from  the  honest 
necessities  of  a  man's  own  nature,  but  that  which  he 
has  taken  up  at  second  hand,  the  study  of  which  has 
ploased_his  intellect;  has  perhaps  subdued  fears  and 
mollified  distresses  which  ought  rather  to  have  grown 
and  increased  until  they  had  driven  the  man  to  the  true 
physician  ;  has  puffed  him  up  with  a  sense  of  superio* 
rity  as  false  as  foolish,  and  placed  in  his  hand  a  club 
with  which  to  subjugate  his  neighbour  to  his  spiritual 
dictation.  The  true  man  even,  who  aims  at  the  per- 
petuation of  his  opinion,  is  rather  obstructing  than 
aiding  the  course  of  that  truth  for  the  love  of  which  he 
holds  his  opinion;  for  truth  is  a  living  thing,  opinion 
is  a  dead  thing,  and  transmitted  opinion  a  deadening 
thing. 

Let  us  look  at  St  Paul's  feeling  in  this  regard. 
And,  in  order  that  we  may  deprive  it  of  none  of  its 
force,  let  us  note  first  the  nature  of  the  truth  which 


A    SERMON.  285 

he  had  just  been  presenting  to  his  disciples,  when  he 
follows  it  with  the  words  of  my  text : — 

But  what  things  were  gain  to  me,  those  I  counted  loss  for 
Christ. 

Yea  doubtless,  and  I  count  all  things  but  loss  for  the 
excellency  of  the  knowledge  of  Christ  Jesus  my  Lord :  for 
whom  I  have  suffered  the  loss  of  all  things,  and  do  count  them 
but  dung,  that  I  may  win  Christ, 

And  be  #()und  in  him,  not  having  mine  own  righteousness, 
■which  is  of  the  law,  but  that  which  is  through  the  faith  of 
Christ,  the  righteousness  which  is  of  God  by  faith  : 

That  I  niay  know  him,  and  the  power  of  his  resurrection, 
and  the  fellowship  of  his  sufferings,  being  made  confoi'mable 
unto  his  death ; 

If  by  any  means  I  might  attain  unto  the  resurrection  of  the 
dead. 

Not  as  though  I  had  already  attained,  either  were  already 
perfect :  but  I  follow  after,  if  that  I  may  apprehend  that  for 
"which  also  I  am  apprehended  of  Christ  Jesus, 

Brethren,  I  count  not  myself  to  have  apprehended :  but  this 
one  thing  I  do,  forgetting  those  things  which  are  behind,  and 
reaching  forth  unto  those  things  which  are  before, 

I  press  toward  the  mark  for  the  prize  of  the  high  calling  of 
God  in  Christ  Jesus. 

St.  Paul,  then,  had  been  declaring  to  the  Philippians 
the  idea  upon  which,  so  far  as  it  lay  with  him,  his  life 
was  constructed,  the  thing  for  which  he  lived,  to  which 
the  whole  cons^cious  effort  of  his  being  was  directed, — 
namely,  to  be  in  his  very  nature  one  with  Christ,  to 
become  righteous  as  he  is  righteous;  to  die  into  his 
•death,  so  that  he  should  no  more  hold  the  slightest 
personal  relation  to  evil,  but  be  alive  in  every  fibre  to 
all  that  is  pure,  lovely,  loving,  beautiful,  perfect  He 
had  been  telling  them  that  he  spent  himself  in  con- 


286  A   SERMON. 

tinuous  effort  to  lay  hold  upon  that  for  the  sake  of 
which  Christ  had  laid  hold  on  him.  This  he  declares 
the  sole  thing  worth  living  for :  the  hope  of  this,  the 
hope  ol  becoming  one  with  the  living  God,  is  that 
which  keeps  a  glorious  consciousness  awake  in  him, 
amidst  all  the  unrest  of  a  being  not  yet  at  harmony  with 
itself,  and  a  laborious  and  persecuted  life.  It  cannot 
therefore  be  any  shadow  of  indifference  to  the  truth  to 
which  he  has  borne  this  witness,  that  causes  him  to 
add,  "If  in  anything  ye  be  otherwise  minded."  It  is 
to  liim  even  the  test  of  perfection,  whether  they  be 
thus  minded  or  not ;  for,  although  a  moment  before,  he 
has  declared  himself  short  of  the  desired  perfection,  he 
now  says,  "  Let  as  many  of  us  as  are  perfect  be  thus 
minded."  There  is  here  no  room  for  that  unprofitable 
thing,  bare  logic  :  we  must  look  through  the  shifting 
rainbow  of  his  words, — rather,  we  must  gather  aU  their 
tints  together,  then  turn  our  backs  upon  the  rainbow, 
that  we  may  see  the  glorious  light  which  is  the  soul  of 
it.  St.  Paul  is  not  that  which  he  would  be,  which  he 
must  be ;  but  he,  and  aU  they  who  with  him  believe 
that  the  perfection  of  Christ  is  the  sole  worthy  effort  of 
a  man's  life,  are  in  the  region,  though  not  yet  at  the 
centre,  of  perfection.  They  are,  even  now,  not  indeed 
grasping,  but  in  the  grasp  of,  that  perfection.  He  tells 
them  this  is  the  one  thing  to  mind,  the  one  thing  to  go 
on  desiring  and  labouring  for,  with  all  the  earnestness 
of  a  God- born  existence ;  but,  if  any  one  be  at  all  other- 
wise minded,— that  is,  of  a  different  opinion, — what 
then  1  That  it  is  of  little  or  no  consequence  1  No, 
verily  ;  but  of  such  endless  consequence  that  God  will 


A    SERMUX.  287 

himself  unveil  to  them  the  truth  of  the  matter.  Thi3_ 
is  Paul's  faith,  not  his  opinion.  Faith  is  that  hy  which 
a  man  lives  inwardly,  and  orders  his  way  outwardly. 
Faith  is  the  root,  belief  the  tree,  and  opinion  the 
foliage  that  falls  and  is  renewed  with  the  seasons. 
Opinion  is,  at  best,  even  the  opinion  of  a  true  man, 
but  the  cloak  of  his  belief,  which  he  may  indeed  cast 
to  his  neighbour,  but  not  with  the  truth  inside  it :  that 
remains  in  his  own  bosom,  the  oneness  between  Him 
and  his  God.  St.  Paul  knows  well — who  better? — 
that  by  no  argument,  the  best  that  logic  itself  can  afford, 
can  a  man  be  set  right  with  the  truth  ;  that  the  spiritual 
perception  which  comes  of  hungering  contact  with  the 
living  truth — a  perception  which  is  in  itself  a  being 
born  again — can  alone  be  the  mediator  between  a  man 
and  the  truth.  He  knows  that,  even  if  he  could  pass 
his  opinion  over  bodily  into  the  understanding  of  his 
neighbour,  there  would  be  little  or  nothing  gained 
thereby,  for  the  man's  spiritual  condition  would  be  just 
what  it  was  before.  God  must  reveal,  or  nothing  is 
known.  And  this,  through  thousands  of  difficulties 
occasioned  by  the  man  himseK,  God  is  ever  and  always 
doing  his  mighty  best  to  effect. 

See  the  grandeur  of  redeeming  liberality  in  thQ 
Apostle.  In  his  heart  of  hearts  he  knows  that  salva- 
tion consists  in  nothing  else  than  being  one  with 
Christ ;  that  the  only  life  of  every  man  is  hid  with 
Christ  in  God,  and  to  be  found  by  no  search  anywhere 
else.  He  believes  that  for  this  cause  was  he  bom  into 
the  world, — that  he  should  give  himself,  heart  and 
soul,  body  and  spirit,  to  him  who  came  into  the  world 


288  A   SERMON. 

that  he  might  hear  witness  to  the  truth.  He  believes 
that  for  the  sake  of  this,  and  nothing  less, — anything 
more  there  cannot  be, — was  the  world,  with  its  endless 
glories,  created.  Nay,  more  than  all,  he  believes  that 
for  this  did  the  Lord,  in  whose  cross,  type  and  triumph 
of  his  self-abnegation,  he  glories,  come  into  the  world, 
and  live  and  die  there.  And  yet,  and  yet,  he  says,  and 
says  plainly,  that  a  man  thinking  differently  from  all 
this  or  at  least,  quite  unprepared  to  make  this  whole- 
hearted profession  of  faith,  is  yet  his  brother  in  Christ, 
in  whom  the  knowledge  of  Christ  that  he  has  will 
work  and  work,  the  new  leaven  casting  out  the  old 
leaven  until  he,  too,  in  the  revelation  of  the  Father, 
shall  come  to  the  perfect  stature  of  the  fulness  of 
Christ.  Meantime,  Paul,  the  Apostle,  must  show  due 
reverence  to  the  halting  and  dull  disciple.  He  must 
and  will  make  no  demand  upon  him  on  the  grounds  of 
what  he,  Paul,  believes.  He  is  where  he  is,  and  God 
is  his  teacher.  To  his  own  Master, — that  is,  Paul's 
Master,  and  not  Paul, — he  stands.  He  leaves  him  to 
the  company  of  his  Master.  "  Leaves  him  ? "  JS'o  : 
that  he  does  not ;  that  he  will  never  do,  any  more  than 
God  will  leave  him.  Still  and  ever  will  he  hold  him 
and  help  him.  But  how  help  him,  if  he  is  not  to  press 
upon  him  his  own  larger  and  deeper  and  wiser  in- 
sights 'i  The  answer  is  ready :  he  will  press,  not  his 
opinion,  not  even  the  man's  opinion,  but  the  man's  own 
faith  upon  him.  "  0,  brother,  beloved  of  the  Father, 
walk  in  the  light, — in  the  light,  that  is,  which  is  thine, 
not  which  is  mine ;  in  the  light  which  is  given  to  thee, 
not  to  me :  thou  canst  not  walk  by  my  light,  I  cannot 


A    SERMON.  289 

walk  "by  thine  :  how  should  either  walk  except  by  the 
light  which  is  in  him  1  0  brother,  what  thou  seest,  that 
do ;  and  what  thou  seest  not,  that  thou  shalt  see  :  God 
himself,  the  Father  of  Lights,  will  show  it  to  you." 
This,  this  is  the  condition  of  all  growth, — that  whereto 
Ave  have  attained,  we  mind  that  same ;  for  such,  fol- 
lowing the  manuscripts,  at  least  the  oldest,  seems  to 
me  the  Apostle's  meaning.  Obedience  is  the  one  con- 
dition of  progress,  and  he  entreats  them  to  obey.  If  a 
man  will  but  work  that  which  is  in  him,  will  but  make 
the  power  of  God  his  own,  then  is  it  well  with  him  for 
evermore.  Like  his  Master,  Paul  urges  to  action,  to 
the  highest  operation,  therefore  to  the  highest  condition 
of  humanity.  As  Christ  was  the  Son  of  his  Father 
because  he  did  the  will  of  the  Father,  so  the  Apostle 
would  have  them  the  sons  of  the  Father  by  doing  the 
will  of  the  Father.  Whereto  ye  have  attained,  walk 
by  that. 

But  there  is  more  involved  in  this  utterance  than 
the  words  themselves  will  expressly  carry.  IS'ext  to  his 
love  to  the  Father  and  the  Elder  Brother,  the  passion 
of  Paul's  life — I  cannot  call  it  less — is  love  to  all  his 
brothers  and  sisters.  Everything  human  is  dear  to 
him :  he  can  part  with  none  of  it.  Division,  separation, 
the  breaking  of  the  body  of  Christ,  is  that  which  he 
cannot  endure.  The  body  of  his  flesh  had  once 
been  broken,  that  a  grander  body  might  be'  prepared 
for  him:  was  it  for  that  body  itself  to  tear  itself 
asunder  'i  "With  the  whole  energy  of  his  great  heart, 
Paul  clung  to  unity.  He  could  clasp  together  with 
might  and  main  the  body  of  his  Master  — the  body 


29()  A   SEEMON. 

that  Master  loved  because  it  was  a  spiritual  body,  with 
the  life  of  his  Father  in  it.  And  he  knew  well  that 
only  by  walking  in  the  truth  to  which  they  had 
attained,  could  they  ever  draw  near  to  each  other, 
Wliereto  we  have  attained,  let  us  walk  by  that. 

My  honoured  friends,  if  we  are  not  practical,  we  are 
nothing.^  Now,  the  one  main  fault  in  the  Christian 
Church  is  separation,  repulsion,  recoil  between  the  com- 
ponent particles  of  the  Lord's  body.  I  will  not,  I  do 
not  care  to  inquire  who  is  more  to  blame  than  another 
in  the  evil  fact.  I  only  care  to  insist  that  it  is  the 
duty  of  every  individual  man  to  he  innocent  of  the 
same.  One  main  cause,  perhaps  I  should  say  the  one 
cause  of  this  deathly  condition,  is  that  whereto  we  had, 
we  did  not,  whereto  we  have  attained,  we  do  not  walk 
by  that.  Ah,  friend  !  do  not  now  think  of  thy  neigh- 
bour. Do  not  applaud  my  opinion  as  just  from  what 
thou  hast  seen  around  thee,  but  answer  it  from  thy 
own  being,  thy  own  behaviour.  Dost  thou  ever  feel 
thus  toward  thy  neighbour,  —  "Yes,  of  course,  every 
man  is  my  brother ;  but  how  can  I  be  a  brother  to  him 
so  long  as  he  thinks  me  wrong  in  what  I  believe,  and 
so  long  as  I  think  he  wrongs  in  his  opinions  the  dignity 
of  the  truth  %  "  What,  I  return,  has  the  man  no  hand 
to  grasp,  no  eyes  into  which  yours  may  gaze  far  deeper 
than  yor  r  vaunted  intellect  can  follow  1  Is  there  not, 
I  ask,  anything  in  him  to  love  ?  Who  asks  you  to  be 
of  one  opinion  1  It  is  the  Lord  who  asks  you  to  be  of 
one  heart.  Does  the  Lord  love  the  man  ?  Can  the 
Lord  love,  where  there  is  nothing  to  love  ?  Are  you 
wiser  than  he,  inasmuch  as  you  perceive  impossibility 


A    SERMON.  291 

where  he  has  failed  to  discover  it  ?  Or  will  you  say, 
''Let  the  Lord  love  where  he  pleases:  I  will  love 
where  I  please "  1  or  say,  and  imagine  you  yield, 
"  Well,  I  suppose  I  must,  and  therefore  I  will, — but 
with  certain  reservations,  politely  quiet  in  my  own 
heart "  1  Or  wilt  thou  say  none  of  all  these  things, 
but  do  them  all,  one  after  the  other,  in  the  secret 
chambers  of  thy  proud  spirit  1  If  you  delight  to  con- 
demn, you  are  a  wounder,  a  divider  of  the  oneness  of 
Christ.  If  you  pride  yourself  on  your  loftier  vision, 
and  are  haughty  to  your  neighbour,  you  are  yourself  a 
division  and  have  reason  to  ask  :  "  Am  I  a  particle  of 
the  body  at  allT'  The  Master  wiU  deal  with  thee 
upon  the  score.  Let  it  humble  thee  to  know  that  thy 
dearest  opinion,  the  one  thou  dost  worship  as  if  it,  and 
not  God,  were  thy  Saviour,  this  very  opinion  thou  art 
doomed  to  change,  for  it  cannot  possibly  be  right,  if  it 
work  in  thee  for  death  and  not  for  life. 

Friends,  you  have  done  me  the  honour  and  the 
kindness  to  ask  me  to  speak  to  you.  I  will  speak 
plainly.  I  come  before  you  neither  hiding  anything  of 
my  belief,  nor  foolishly  imagining  I  can  transfer  my 
opinions  into  your  bosoms.  If  there  is  one  role  I  hate, 
it  is  that  of  the  proselytizer.  But  shall  I  not  come  to 
you  as  a  brother  to  brethren  ?  Shall  I  not  use  the 
privilege  of  your  invitation  and  of  the  place  in  which  I 
stand,  nay,  must  I  not  myself  be  obedient  to  the 
heavenly  vision,  in  urging  you  with  all  the  power  of 
my  persuasion  to  set  yourselves  afresh  to  walk  accord- 
ing to  that  to  which  you  have  attained.  So  doing, 
whatever  yet  there  is  to  learn,  you  shall  learn  it.  Thus 
u  2 


292  A    SERMON. 

doing,  and  thus  only,  can  you  draw  nigh  to  the  centre 
truth  ;  thus  doing,  and  thus  only,  shall  we  draw  nigh 
to   each   other,    and   become   brothers  and  sisters  in 
Christ,  caring  for  each  other's  honour  and  righteousness 
and  true  well-being.     It  is  to  them  that  keep  his  com- 
mandments that  he  and  his  Father  wiU  come  to  take 
up  their  abode  with  them.     Wliether  you  or  I  have 
the  larger  share  of  the  truth  in  that  which  we  hold,  of 
this  I  am  sure,  that  it  is  to  them  that  keep  his  com- 
mandments that  it  shall  be  given  to  eat  of  the  Tree  of 
Life.     I  believe  that  Jesus  is  the  eternal  son  of  the 
eternal  Father;  that  in  him  the  ideal  humanity  sat 
enthroned  from  all  eternity ;  that  as  he  is  the  divine_ 
man,  so  is  he  the  human  God;  that  there  was  no  taking 
of  our  nature  upon  himself,  but  the  showing  of  himself 
as  he  reaUy  was,  and  that  from  evermore  :  these  things, 
friends,  I  believe,  though  never  would  I  be  guilty  of 
what  in  me  would  be  the  irreverence  of  opening  my 
mouth  in  dispute  upon  them.     Not  for  a  moment  would 
I  endeavour  by  argument  to  convince  another  of  this, 
my  opinion.     If  it  be  true,  it  is  God's  work  to  show  it, 
for  logic  cannot.     But  the  more,  and  not  the  less,  do  I 
believe  that  he,  who  is  no  respecter  of  persons,  wiU, 
least  of  aU,   respect  the  person  of  him  who  thinks  to 
please  him  by  respecting  his  person,  calling  him,  "  Lord, 
Lord,"  and  not  doing  the  things  that  he  tells  him. 
Even  if  I  be  right,  friend,   and  thou  wrong,  to  thee 
who  doest  his  commandments  more  faithfully  than  I, 
will  the  more  abundant  entrance  be  administered.  God 
gi-ant  that,  when  thou  art  admitted  first,  I  may  not  bo 
cast  out,    but  admitted   to  learn  of  thee  that  it   is 


A   SERMON.  293 

truth  in  tlie  inward  parts  that  he  requireth,  and  they 
that  have  that  truth,  and  they  alone,  shall  ever  know 
wisdom.  Bear  with  me,  friends,  for  I  love  and  honour 
you.  I  seek  but  to  stir  up  your  hearts,  as  I  would 
daily  stir  up  my  own,  to  be  true  to  that  which  is 
deepest  in  us, — the  voice  and  the  will  of  the  Father  of 
our  spirits. 

Friends,  I  have  not  said  we  are  not  to  utter  our 
opinions.     I  have  only  said  we  are  not  to  make  those 
opinions  the  point  of  a  fresh  start,  the  foimdation  of  a 
new  building,  the  ^oundwork  of  anything.     Tliey  arc 
not  to  occupy  us  in  our  dealings  with  our  brethren. 
Opinion  is  often  the  very  death  of  love.     L  >      aright, 
and  you  will  come  to  think  aright  ;  aiul   iliu-e  who 
think  aright  must  think  the  same.     In  tlie  meantime, 
it  matters  nothing.     The  thing  that  does  matter  is, 
that  whereto  we  have  attained,  by  that  we  should  walk. 
But,  while  we  are  not  to  insist  upon  our  opinions, 
which  is  only  one  way  of  insisting  upon  ourselves, 
however  we  may  cloak  the  fact  from  ourselves  in  tlie 
vain  imagination  of  thereby  spreading  the  truth,  wo 
are  bound  by  loftiest  duty  to  spread  tlie  truth ;  for 
that  is  the  saving  of  men.     Do  you  ask,  TIow  spread 
it,  if  we  are  not  to  talk  about  it?     Friends,  I  never 
said.  Do  not  talk  about  the  truth,  although  I  insi.4 
upon  a  better  and  the  only  indispensable  way :  let  your 
light  shine.     What  I  said  before,  and  say  again,  is,  Do 
not  talk  about  the  lantern  that  holds  the  lamp,  but 
make  haste,  uncover  the  light,  and  let  it  shine.     Let 
your  light  so  shine  before  men  that  they  may  see  your 
good  works, — I  incline  to  the  Vatican  reading  of  good 


294  A    SERMOlf. 

things, — and  glorify  your- Father  who  is  in  heaven.  It 
is  not,  Let  your  good  works  shine,  but,  Let  your  light 
shine.  Let  it  be  the  genuine  love  of  your  hearts, 
taking  form  in  true  deeds  ;  not  the  doing  of  good  deeds 
to  prove  that  your  opinions  are  right.  If  ye  are  thus 
true,  your  very  talk  about  the  truth  will  be  a  good 
work,  a  shining  of  the  light  that  is  in  you.  A  true 
smile  is  a  good  work,  and  may  do  much  to  reveal  the 
Father  who  is  in  heaven ;  but  the  smile  that  is  put  on 
for  the  sake  of  looking  right,  or  even  for  the  sake  of 
being  right,  will  hardly  reveal  him,  not  heing  like  him. 
Men  say  that  you  are  cold :  if  you  fear  it  may  be  so, 
do  not  think  to  make  yourselves  warm  by  putting  on 
the  cloak  of  this  or  that  fresh  opinion  ;  draw  nearer  to 
the  central  heat,  the  living  humanity  of  the  Son  of 
Man,  that  ye  may  have  life  in  yourselves,  so  heat  in 
yourselves,  so  light  in  yourselves ;  understand  him, 
obey  him,  then  your  light  wiU  shine,  and  your  warmth 
will  warm.  There  is  an  infection,  as  in  evil,  so  in 
good.  The  better  we  are,  the  more  will  men  glorify 
God.  If  we  trim  our  lamps  so  that  we  liave  liL,4it  in 
our  house,  that  light  will  shine  through  our  windows, 
and  give  light  to  those  that  are  not  in  the  house.  Ikit 
remember,  love  of  the  light  alone  can  trim  the  lamp. 
Had  Love  trimmed  Psyche's  lamp,  it  had  never  dropped 
the  scalding  oil  that  scared  him  from  her. 

The  man  who  holds  his  opinion  the  most  honestly 
ought  to  see  the  most  plainly  that  his  opinion  must 
change.  It  is  impossible  a  man  should  hold  anything 
aright  How  shall  the  created  embrace  the  self-existent 
Creator f    That  Creator,  and  he  alone,  is  the  truth: 


A   SERMON.  295 

how,  then,  shall  a  man  embrace  the  truth  ?  But  to 
him  who  will  live  it, — to  him,  that  is,  who  walks  by 
that  to  which  he  has  attained, — the  truth  will  reach 
down  a  thousand  true  hands  for  his  to  grasp.  AYe 
would  not  wish  to  enclose  that  which  we  can  do  more 
than  enclose, — live  in,  namely,  as  our  home,  inherit, 
exult  in, — the  presence  of  the  infinitely  higher  and 
better,  the  heart  of  the  living  one.  And,  if  we  know 
that  God  himself  is  our  inheritance,  why  should  we 
tremble  even  with  hatred  at  the  suggestion  that  we 
may,  that  we  must,  change  our  opinions  1  If  we  held 
them  aright,  we  should  know  that  nothing  in  them 
that  is  good  can  ever  be  lost;  for  that  is  the  true, 
whatever  in  them  may  be  the  false.  It  is  only  as  they 
help  us  toward  God,  that  our  opinions  are  worth  a 
straw ;  and  every  necessary  change  in  them  must  be  to 
more  truth,  to  greater  uplifting  power.  Lord,  change 
me  as  thou  wilt,  only  do  not  send  me  away.  That  in 
my  opinions  for  which  I  reaUy  hold  them,  if  I  be  a 
true  man,  will  never  pass  away ;  that  which  my  evils 
and  imperfections  have,  in  the  process  of  embodying  it, 
associated  with  the  truth,  must,  thank  God,  perish  and 
faU.  My  opinions,  as  my  life,  as  my  love,  I  leave  in 
the  hands  of  him  who  is  my  being.  I  commend  my 
spirit  to  him  of  whom  it  came.  Why,  then,  that  dis- 
like to  the  very  idea  of  such  change,  that  dread  of 
having  to  accept  the  thing  oJBfered  by  those  whom  we 
count  our  opponents,  which  is  such  a  stumbling-block 
in  the  way  in  which  we  have  to  walk,  such  an  obstruc- 
tion to  our  yet  inevitable  growth  1  It  may  be  objected 
that  no  man  wiU  hold  his  opinions  with  the  needful 


296  A   SEEMOK. 

earnestness,  who  can  entertain  the  idea  of  having  to 
change  them.  But  the  very  objection  speaks  powerfully 
against  such  an  overvaluing  of  opinion.  For  what  is 
it  but  to  say  that,  in  order  to  be  wise,  a  man  must 
consent  to  be  a  fool.  AYhatever  must  be,  a  man  must 
be  able  to  look  in  the  face.  It  is  because  we  cleave  to 
our  opinions  rather  than  to  the  living  God,  because 
self  and  pride*  interest  themselves  for  their  own  vile 
Bakes  with  that  which  belongs  only  to  the  truth,  that 
we  become  such  fools  of  logic  and  temper  that  we  lie 
in  the  prison-houses  of  our  own  fancies,  ideas,  and 
experiences,  shut  the  doors  and  windows  against  the 
entrance  of  the  free  spirit,  and  will  not  inherit  the  love 
of  the  Father. 

Yet,  for  the  help  and  comfort  of  even  such  a  refuser 
as  this,  I  would  say  :  Nothing  which  you  reject  can  be 
such  as  it  seems  to  you.  For  a  thing  is  either  true  or 
untrue  :  if  it  be  untrue,  it  looks  so  far  like  itself  that 
you  reject  it,  and  with  it  we  have  nothing  more  to  do  ; 
but,  if  it  be  true,  the  very  fact  that  you  reject  it  shows 
that  to  you  it  has  not  appeared  true, — has  not  appeared 
itself.  The  truth  can  never  be  even  beheld  but  by  the 
man  who  accepts  it :  the  thing,  therefore,  which  you 
reject,  is  not  that  which  it  seems  to  you,  but  a  thing 
good,  and  altogether  beautiful,  altogether  fit  for  your 
gladsome  embrace, — a  thing  from  which  you  would  not 
turn  away,  did  you  see  it  as  it  is,  but  rush  to  it,  as 
Dante  says,  like  the  wild  beast  to  his  den,— so  eager 
for  the  refuge  of  home.  No  honest  man  holds  a  truth 
for  the  sake  of  that  because  of  which  another  honest 
man  rejects  it :  how  it  may  be  with  the  dishonest,  1 


A  sER:>roN.  297 

have  no  confidence  in  my  judgment,  and  hope  I  am 
not  bound  to  understand. 

Let  us  then,  my  friends,  beware  lest  our  opinions 
come  between  us  and  our  God,  between  us  and  our 
neighbour,  between  us  and  our  better  selves.  Let  us 
be  jealous  that  the  human  shall  not  obscure  the  divine. 
For  we  are  not  mere  human  :  we,  too,  are  divine  ;  and 
there  is  no  such  obliterator  of  the  divine  as  the  human 
that  acts  undivinely.  The  one  security  against  our 
opinions  is  to  walk  according  to  the  truth  which  they 
contain. 

And  if  men  seem  to  us  unreasonable,  opposers  of  that 
which  to  us  is  plainly  true,  let  us  remember  that  we 
are  not  here  to  convince  men,  but  to  let  our  light  shine. 
Ejiowledge  is  not  necessarily  light ;  and  it  is  light,  not 
knowledge,  that  we  have  to  diffuse.  The  best  thing 
we  can  do,  infinitely  the  best,  indeed  the  only  thing, 
that  men  may  receive  the  truth,  is  to  be  ourselves  true. 
Beyond  all'  doing  of  good  is  the  being  good  ;  for  he 
that  is  good  not  only  does  good  things,  but  all  that  he 
does  is  good.  Above  all,  let  us  be  humble  before  the 
God  of  truth,  faithfully  desiring  of  him  that  truth  in 
the  inward  parts  which  alone  can  enable  us  to  walk 
according  to  that  which  we  have  attained.  May  the 
God  of  peace  give  you  his  peace ;  may  the  love  of 
Christ  constrain  you  j  may  the  gift  of  the  Holy  Spirit 
be  yours.     Amen. 


TRUE  GREATNESS. 

Matt.  xx.  26 — 28. — But  Jesus  called  them  unto  him  and  said,  Ye 
know  that  the  princes  of  the  Gentiles  exercise  dominion  over  them,  and 
they  that  are  great  exercise  authority  upon  them.  But  it  should  not  be 
so  among  you:  but  whosoever  will  be  great  among  you,  let  him  be  your 
minister;  and  whosoever  will  be  chief  among  you,  let  him  be  your 
servant :  even  as  the  Son  of  Man  came  not  to  be  ministered  unto,  but 
to  minister,  and  to  give  his  life  a  ransom  for  many, 

OW  little  this  is  believed  !  People  think, 
if  they  think  about  it  at  all,  that  this  is 
very  well  in  the  church,  but,  as  things 
go  in  the  world,  it  won't  do.  At  least, 
their  actions  imply  this,  for  every  man  is  struggling  to 
get  above  the  other.  Every  man  would  make  his 
neighbour  his  footstool  that  he  may  climb  upon  him  to 
some  throne  of  glory  which  he  has  in  his  own  mind. 
There  is  a  continual  jostling,  and  crowding,  and  buzzing, 
and  striving  to  get  promotion.  Of  course  there  are 
known  and  noble  exceptions;  but  still,  there  it  is. 
And  yet  we  call  ourselves  "  Christians,"  and  we  are 
Christians,  all  of  us,  thus  far,  that  the  truth  is  within 
reach  of  us  all,  that  it  has  come  nigh  to  us,  talking  to 
us  at  our  door,  and  even  speaking  in  our  hearts,  and 
yet  this  is  the  way  in  which  we  go  on !  The  Lord 
said,  "  It  shall  not  be  so  among  you."  Did  he  mean 
only  his  twelve  disciples  1  This  was  all  that  he  had 
to  say  to  them,  but — thanks  be  to  him  ! — he  says  the 
>  A  spoken  sennon. 


TRUE    GREATNESS.  299 

same  to  every  one  of  us  now.  "  It  shall  not  be  so 
among  you  :  that  is  not  the  way  in  m}'  kingdom."  The 
people  of  the  world — the  people  who  live  in  the  world 
—  will  always  think  it  best  to  get  up,  to  have  less  and 
less  of  service  to  do,  more  and  more  of  service  done  to 
them.  The  notion  of  rank  in  the  world  is  like  a 
pyramid ;  the  higher  you  go  up,  the  fewer  are  there 
who  have  to  serve  those  above  them,  and  who  are 
served  more  than  those  underneath  them.  All 
who  are  under  serve  those  who  are  above,  until  you 
come  to  the  apex,  and  there  stands  some  one  who  has 
to  do  no  service,  but  whom  all  the  others  have  to  serve. 
Something  like  that  is  the  notion  of  position — of  social 
standing  and  rank.  And  if  it  be  so  in  an  intellectual 
way  even — to  say  nothing  of  mere  bodily  service — if 
any  man  works  to  a  position  that  others  shall  all  look 
up  to  him  and  that  he  may  have  to  look  up  to  nobody^ 
he  has  just  put  himself  precisely  into  the  same  condi- 
tion as  the  people  of  whom  our  Lord  speaks — as  those 
who  exercise  dominion  and  authority,  and  really  he 
thinks  it  a  fine  thing  to  be  served. 

But  it  is  not  so  in  the  kingdom  of  heaven.  The 
figure  there  is  entirely  reversed.  As  you  may  see  a 
pyramid  reflected  in  the  water,  just  so,  in  a  reversed 
way  altogether,  is  the  thing  to  be  found  in  the  kingdom 
of  God.  It  is  in  this  way  :  the  Son  of  Man  lies  at  the 
inverted  apex  of  the  pyramid  ;  he  upholds,  and  serves, 
and  ministers  unto  all,  and  they  who  would  be  high  in 
his  kingdom  must  go  •  near  to  him  at  the  bottom,  to 
uphold  and  minister  to  all  that  they  may  or  can  uphold 
and  minister  unto.     There  is  no  other  law  of  pre- 


300  TRUE    OiREATNESS. 

cedence,  no  other  law  of  rank  and  position  in  God's 
kingdom.  And  mind,  tliat  is  the  kingdom.  The  other 
kingdom  passes  away — it  is  a  transitory,  ephemeral, 
passing,  bad  thing,  and  away  it  must  go.  It  is  only 
there  on  sufferance,  because  in  the  mind  of  God  even 
that  which  is  bad  ministers  to  that  which  is  good  ;  and 
when  the  new  kingdom  is  built  the  old  kingdom  shall 
pass  away. 

But  the  man  who  seeks  this  rank  of  which  I  have 
spoken,  must  be  honest  to  follow  it.  It  wiU  not  do  to 
say,  "  I  want  to  be  great,  and  therefore  I  will  serve." 
A  man  will  not  get  at  it  so.  He  may  begin  so,  but  he 
wiU  soon  find  that  that  will  not  do.  He  must  seek  it 
for  the  truth's  sake,  for  the  love  of  his  fellows,  for  the 
worship  of  Go^,  for  the  delight  in  what  is  good.  In 
the  kingdom  of  heaven  people  do  not  think  whether  I 
am  promoted,  or  whether  you  are  promoted.  They  are  so 
absorbed  in  the  delight  and  glory  of  the  goodness  that 
is  round  about  them,  that  they  learn  not  to  think  much 
about  themselves.  It  is  the  bad  that  is  in  us  that  makes 
us  think  about  ourselves.  It  is  necessary  for  us,  because 
there  is  bad  in  us,  to  think  about  ourselves,  but  as  we 
go  on  we  think  less  and  less  about  ourselves,  until  at 
last  we  are  possessed  with  the  spirit  of  the  truth,  the 
spirit  of  the  kingdom,  and  live  in  gladness  and  in 
peace.  We  are  prouder  of  our  brothers  and  sisters  than 
of  ourselves  ;  we  delight  to  look  at  them.  God  looks 
at  us,  and  makes  us  what  he  pleases,  and  this  is  what 
we  must  come  to ;  there  is  no  escape  from  it. 

But  the  Lord  says,  that  "  the  Son  of  Man  came  not 
to  be  ministered  unto."    Was  he  not  ministered  unto 


TRUE    GREATNESS.  301 

then  t  Ah !  he  was  ministered  unto  as  never  man 
was,  but  he  did  not  come  for  that.  Even  now  we 
bring  to  him  the  burnt-oiferings  of  our  very  spirits, 
but  he  did  not  come  for  that.  It  was  to  help  us  that 
he  came.  We  are  told,  likewise,  that  he  is  the  express 
image  of  the  Father.  Then  what  he  does,  the  Eather 
must  do ;  and  he  says  himself,  when  he  is  accused  of 
breaking  the  Sabbath  by  doing  work  on  it,  "My 
Father  worketh.hitherto,  and  I  work."  Then  this  must 
be  God's  way  too,  or  else  it  could  not  have  been  Jesus's 
way.  It  is  God's  way.  Oh  !  do  not  think  that  God 
made  us  with  his  hands,  and  then  turned  us  out  to  find 
out  our  own  way.  Do  not  think  of  him  as  being  always 
over  our  heads,  merely  throwing  over  us  a  wide-spread 
benevolence.  You  can  imagine  the  tenderness  of  a 
mother's  heart  who  takes  her  child  even  from  its 
beloved  nurse  to  soothe  and  to  minister  to  it,  and  that 
is  like  God ;  that  is  God.  His  hand  is  not  only  over 
us,  but  recollect  what  David  said — "His  hand  was 
upon  me."  I  wish  we  were  all  as  good  Christians  as 
David  was.  *'  "Wherever  I  go,"  he  said,  "  God  is  there 
— beneath  me,  before  me,  his  hand  is  upon  me ;  if 
I  go  to  sleep  he  is  there;  when  I  go  down  to  the 
dead  he  is  there."  Everywhere  is  God.  The  earth 
underneath  us  is  his  hand  upholding  us.^  Every 
spring-fountain  of  gladness  about  us  is  his  making  and 
his  delight.  He  tends  us  and  cares  for  us ;  he  is 
close  to  us,  breathing  into  our  nostrils  the  breath  of 
life,  and  breathing  into  our  spirit  this  thought  and  that 
thought  to  make  us  look  up  and  recognize  the  love  and 
*  The  waters  are  ip  the  hollow  of  it. 


302  TRUE    GREATXESS. 

the  care  around  us.  What  a  poor  thing  for  the  little 
baby  would  it  be  if  it  were  to  be  constantly  tended 
thus  tenderly  and  preciously  by  its  mother,  but  if  it  were 
never  to  open  its  eyes  to  look  up  and  see  her  mother's 
face  bending  over  it.  A  poor  thing  all  its  tending 
would  be  without  that.  It  is  for  that  that  the  other 
exists  ;  it  is  by  that  that  the  other  comes.  To  recog- 
nize and  know  this  loving-kindness,  and  to  stand  up  in 
it  strong  and  glad ;  this  is  the  ministration  of  God 
unto  us.  Do  you  ever  think  "  I  could  worship  Grod  if 
he  was  so-and-so  ? "  Do  you  imagine  that  Grod  is  not 
as  good,  as  perfect,  as  absolutely  all-in-all  as  your 
thoughts  can  imagine  1  Aye,  you  cannot  come  up  to 
it ;  do  what  you  will  you  never  will  come  up  to  it. 
Use  all  the  symbols  that  we  have  in  nature,  in  human 
relations,  in  the  family — all  our  symbols  of  grace  and 
tenderness,  and  loving-kindness  between  man  and  man, 
and  between  man  and  woman,  and  between  woman  and 
woman,  but  you  can  never  come  up  to  the  thought  of 
what  God's  ministration  is.  TV  hen  our  Lord  came  he 
just  let  us  see  how  his  Father  was  doing  this  always, 
he  "  came  to  give  his  life  a  ransom  for  many."  It 
was  in  giving  his  life  a  ransom  for  us  that  he  died ; 
that  was  the  consummation  and  crown  of  it  all,  but  it 
was  his  life  that  he  gave  for  us— his  whole  being, 
his  whole  strength,  his  whole  energy — not  alone  his 
days  of  trouble  and  of  toil,  but  deeper  than  that,  he 
gave  his  whole  being  for  us ;  yea,  he  even  went  down 
to  death  for  us. 

But  how  are  we  to  learn  this  ministration  ?    I  will 
tell  you  where  it  begins.     The  most  of  us  are  forced  to 


TRUE    GREATNESS.  803 

work  ;  if  you  do  not  see  that  the  commonest  things  in 
life  belong  to  the  Christian  scheme,  the  plan  of  God> 
you  have  got  to  learn  it.  I  say  this  is  at  the  begin- 
ning. Most  of  us  have  to  work,  and  infinitely  better  is 
that  for  us  than  if  we  were  not  forced  to  work,  but  not 
a  very  fine  thing  unless  it  goes  to  something  farther. 
We  are  forced  to  work  ;  and  what  is  our  work  1  It  is 
doing  something  for  other  people  always.  It  is  doing  ; 
it  is  ministration  in  some  shape  or  other.  All  kind  of 
work  is  a  serving,  but  it  may  not  be  always  Christian 
service.  No.  Some  of  us  only  work  for  our  wages ; 
we  must  have  them.  We  starve,  and  deserve  to  starve, 
if  we  do  not  work  to  get  them.  But  we  must  go  a 
little  beyond  that ;  yes,  a  very  great  way  beyond  that. 
There  is  no  honest  work  that  one  man  does  for  another 
which  he  may  not  do  as  unto  the  Lord  and  not  unto 
men ;  in  which  Jj^e  cannot  do  right  as  he  ought  to  do 
right.  Thus,  I  say  that  the  man  who  sees  the  com- 
monest thing  in  the  world,  recognizing  it  as  part  of  the 
divine  order  of  things,  the  law  by  which  the  world 
goes,  being  the  intention  of  God  that  one  man  should 
be  serviceable  and  useful  to  another— the  man,  I  say, 
who  does  a  thing  well  because  of  this,  and  who  tries  to 
do  it  better,  is  doing  God  service. 

We  talk  of  "divine  service."  It  is  a  miserable 
name  for  a  great  thing.  It  is  not  service,  pro- 
perly speaking,  at  all.  When  a  boy  comes  to  hia 
father  and  says,  "  May  I  do  so  and  so  for  you  ? "  or, 
rather,  comes  and  breaks  out  in  some  way,  showing 
his  love  to  his  father — says,  "May  I  come  and  sit 
beside  you  ?    May  I  have  some  of  your  books  1     May 


304  TRUE    GREATNESS. 

I  come  and  t>e  quiet  a  little  in  your  room?"  what 
would  you  think  of  that  boy  if  he  went  and  said,  "  I 
have  been  doing  my  father  a  service."  So  with  pray- 
ing to  and  thanking  God,  do  you  call  that  serving 
God?"  If  it  is  not  serving  yourselves  it  is  worth 
nothing ;  if  it  is  not  the  best  condition  you  can  find 
yourselves  in,  you  have  to  learn  what  it  is  yet.  Not 
so ;  the  work  you  have  to  do  to-morrow  in  the  count- 
ing-house, in  the  shop,  or  wherever  you  may  be,  is  that 
by  which  you  are  to  serve  God.  Do  it  with  a  high 
regard,  and  then  there  is  nothing  mean  in  it ;  but  there 
is  everything  mean  in  it  if  you  are  pretending  to  please 
people  when  you  only  look  for  your  wages.  It  is  mean 
then ;  but  if  you  have  regard  to  doing  a  thing  nobly, 
greatly,  and  truly,  because  it  is  the  work  that  God  has 
given  you  to  do,  then  you  are  doing  the  divine  service. 
Of  course,  this  goes  a  great  deal  farther.  We  have 
endless  opportunities  of  showing  ourselves  neighbours 
to  the  man  who  comes  near  us.  That  is  the  divine 
service ;  that  is  the  reality  of  serving  God.  The  others 
ought  to  be  your  reward,  if  "  reward  "  is  a  wo  id  that 
can  be  used  in  such  a  relation  at  all.  Go  home  and 
speak  to  God ;  nay,  hold  your  tongue,  and  quietly  go 
to  him  in  the  secret  recesses  of  your  own  heart,  and 
know  that  God  is  there.  Say,  "  God  has  given  me  this 
work  to  do,  and  I  am  doing  it ;"  and  that  is  your  joy, 
that  is  your  refuge,  that  is  your  going  to  heaven.  •  It 
is  not  service.  The  words  "  divine  service,"  as  they 
are  used,  always  move  me  to  something  of  indignation. 
It  is  perfect  paganisn^ ;  it  is  looking  to  please  God  by 
gathering  together  your  services, — something  that  la 


TRUE    GREATNESS. 


305 


supposed  to  be  service  to  him.  He  is  serving  us  for 
ever,  and  our  Lord  says,  "  If  I  have  washed  your  feet, 
so  you  ought  to  wash  one  another's  feet,"  This  will 
be  the  way  in  which  to  minister"  for  some. 

But  still,  when  we  are  beginning  to  learn  this,  some 
of  us  are  looking  about  us  in  a  blind  kind  of  way, 
thinking,  "  I  wish  I  could  serve  God  ;  I  do  not  know 
what  to  do  !  How  is  it  to  be  begun  1  What  is  it  at 
the  root  of  it  ?  What  shall  I  find  out  to  do  ?  Where 
is  there  something  to  do  1  " 

Now,  first  of  all,  service  is  obedience,  or  it  is  nothing. 
This  is  what  I  would  gladly  impress  upon  you ; 
upon  every  young  man  who  has  come  to  the  point  to 
be  able  to  receive  it.  There  is  a  tendency  in  us  to 
think  that  there  is  something  degrading  in  obedience, 
something  degrading  in  service.  According  to  the 
social  judgment  there  is  ;  according  to  the  judgment  of 
the  earth  there  is.  Not  so  according  to  the  judgment 
of  heaven,  for  Grod  would  only  have  us  do  the  very 
thing  he  is  doing  himself.  You  may  see  the  tendency 
of  this  nowadays.  There  is  scarcely  a  young  man  who 
will  speak  of  his  "master."  He  feels  as  if  there  is 
something  that  hurts  his  dignity  in  doing  so.  He  does 
just  what  so  many  theologians  have  done  about  God, 
who,  instead  of  taking  what  our  Lord  has  given  us, 
talk  about  God  as  *'  the  Governor  of  the  Universe." 
So  a  young  man  talks  about  his  master  as  "  the  gover- 
nor ;"  nay,  he  even  talks  of  his  own  father  in  that  way, 
and  then  you  come  in  another  region  altogether,  and  a 
worse  one.  I  take  these  things  as  symptoms,  mind. 
I  know  habits  may  be  picked  up,  when  they  get  com- 

X 


306  TKUB   GREATNESS. 

mon,  without  any  great  corresponding  feeling ;  but  a 
wrong  habit  tends  always  to  a  wrong  feeling,  and  if  a 
man  cannot  learn  to  honour  his  father,  so  as  to  be  able 
to  call  him  "  father,"  I  think  one  or  the  other  of  them 
is  greatly  to  blame,  whether  the  father  or  the  son  I 
cannot  say.  I  know  there  are  such  parents  that  to  tell 
their  children  that  God  is  their  "  Father  "  is  no  help  to 
them,  but  the  contrary.  I  heard  of  a  lady  just  the 
other  day  to  whom,  in  trying  to  comfort  her,  some  one 
said,  "Eemember  God  is  your  Father."  "Do  not 
mention  the  name  '  father '  to  me,"  she  said.  Ah ! 
that  kind  of  fault  does  not  lie  in  God,  but  in  those 
who,  not  being  like  him,  cannot  use  the  names  aright 
which  belong  to  him. 

But  now,  as  to  this  service,  this  obedience.  Our 
Lord  came  to  give  his  life  a  ransom  for  the  many,  and 
to  minister  unto  all  in  obedience  to  his  Father's  will. 
We  call  him  equal  with  God — at  least,  most  of  us 
here,  I  suppose,  do ;  of  course  we  do  not  pretend  to 
explain  ;  we  know  that  God  is  greater  than  he,  because 
he  said  so ;  but  somehow,  we  can  worship  him  with 
our  God,  and  we  need  not  try  to  distinguish  more  than 
is  necessary  about  it.  But  do  you  think  that  he  was 
less  divine  than  the  Father  when  he  was  obedient  ? 
Observe  his  obedience  to  the  will  of  his  Father.  He 
was  not  the  ruler  there.  He  did  not  give  the  com- 
mands ;  he  obeyed  them.  And  yet  we  say  He  is  God  ! 
Ah,  that  is  no  difficulty  to  me.  Obedience  is  as 
divine  in  its  essence  as  command  ;  nay,  it  may  be  more 
divine  in  the  human  being  far;  it  cannot  be  more 
divine  in  God,  but  obedience  is  far  more  divine  in  its 


TRUE    GREATIS^ESS.  307 

essence  with  regard  to  humanity  than  command  is.  It 
is  not  the  ruling  being  who  is  most  like  God  ;  it  is  the 
man  who  ministers  to  his  fellow,  who  is  like  Grod ;  and 
the  man  who  will  just  sternly  and  rigidly  do  what  his 
master  tells  him — be  that  master  what  he  may — who 
is  likest  Christ  in  that  one  particular  matter.  Obedience 
is  the  grandest  thing  in  the  world  to  begin  with.  Yes, 
and  we  shall  end  with  it  too.  I  do  not  think  the  time 
will  ever  come  when  we  shall  not  have  something  to 

do,  because  we  are  told  to  do  it  without  knowing  why^ 

Those  parents  act  most  fooKshly  who  wish  to  explain 
everything  to  their  children — most  foolislily.  Xoj 
teach  your  child  to  obey,  and  you  give  him  the  most 
precious  lesson  that  can  be  given  to  a  child.  Let  him 
come  to  that  before  you  have  had  him  long,  to  do  what 
he  is  told,  and  you  have  given  him  the  plainest,  first, 
and  best  lesson  that  you  can  give  him.  If  he  never 
goes  to  school  at  all  he  had  better  have  that  lesson  than 
all  the  schooling  in  the  world.  Hence,  when  some 
people  are  accustomed  to  glorify  this  age  of  ours  as 
being  so  much  better  in  everything  than  those  which 
went  before,  I  look  back  to  the  times  of  chivalry, 
which  we  regard  now,  almost,  as  a  thing  to  laugh  at. 
or  a  merry  thing  to  make  jokes  about ;  but  I  find  thaj 
the  one  essential  of  chivalry  was  obedience.  It  is  ^ 
recognized  in  our  army  still,  but  in  those  times  it 
was  carried  much  farther.  When  a  boy  was  seven 
years  old  he  was  sent  into  another  family,  and  put 
with  another  boy  there  to  do  what  ?  To  wait  with  him 
upon  the  master  and  the  mistress  of  the  house,  and  to 
be  taught,  as  well,  what  few  things  they  knew  in  those 
X  2 


8C8  TRUE    GREATNESS. 

times  in  the  way  of  intellectual  cultivation.  But  he 
also  learned  stern,  strict  obedience,  such  as  it  was  ini' 
possible  for  him  to  forget.  Then,  when  he  had  been 
there  seven  years,  hard  at  work,  standing  behind  the 
chair,  and  ministering,  he  was  advanced  a  step ;  and 
what  was  that  step  1  He  was  made  an  esquire.  He 
had  his  armour  given  him ;  he  had  to  watch  his  armour 
ir.  the  chapel  all  night,  laying  it  on  the  altar  in  silent 
devotion  to  God.  I  do  not  say  that  aU  these  things 
were  carried  out  afterwards,  but  this  was  the  idea  of 
them.  He  was  an  esquire,  and  what  was  the  duty  of 
an  esquire  1  More  service  ;  more  important  service. 
He  still  had  to  attend  to  his  master,  the  knight.  He 
had  to  watch  him  ;  he  had  to  groom  his  horse  for  him ; 
he  had  to  see  that  his  horse  was  sound ;  he  had  to 
clean  his  armour  for  him ;  to  see  that  every  bolt,  every 
rivet,  every  strap,  every  buckle  was  sound,  for  the  life 
of  his  master  was  in  his  hands.  The  master,  having  to 
fight,  must  not  be  troubled  with  these  things,  and 
therefore  the  squire  had  to  attend  to  them.  Then 
seven  years  after  that  a  more  solemn  ceremony  is  gone- 
through,  and  the  squire  is  made  a  knight ;  but  is  he 
free  of  service  then  ?  No  ;  he  makes  a  solemn  oath  to 
help  everybody  who  needs  help,  especially  women  and 
children,  and  so  he  rides  out  into  the  world  to  do  the 
work  of  a  true  man.  There  was  a  grand  and  essential 
idea  of  Christianity  in  that — no  doubt  wonderfully 
broken  and  shattered,  but  not  more  so  than  the  Chris- 
tian church  iias  been ;  wonderfully  broken  and  shat- 
tej-ed,  but  stiU  the  essence  of  obedience ;  and  I  say  it 
is  recognized  in  our  army  still,  and  in  every  anny ;  and 


TRUE    GREATNESS.  809 

where  it  is  lost  it  is  a  terrible  loss,  and  an  army  is 
worth  nothing  without  it.  You  remember  that  terrible 
story  from  the  East,  that  fearful  death-charge,  one  of 
the  grandest  things  in  our  history,  although  one  of  the 
most  blundering : — 

"  Theirs  not  to  make  reply, 
Theirs  not  to  reason  why. 
Theirs  but  to  do  and  die  j 
Into  the  valley  of  death 

Bode  the  Six  Hundred.** 

So  with  the  Christian  man ;  whatever  meets  him, 
obedience  is  the  thing.  If  he  is  told  by  his  conscience, 
which  is  the  candle  of  G-od  within  him,  that  he  must 
do  a  thing,  why  he  must  do  it.  He  may  tremble  from 
head  to  foot  at  having  to  do  it,  but  he  will  tremble 
more  if  he  turns  his  back.  You  recollect  how  our  old 
poet  Spenser  shows  us  the  Knight  of  the  Red  Cross, 
who  is  the  knight  of  holiness,  ill  in  body,  diseased  in 
mind,  without  any  of  his  armour  on,  attacked  by  a 
fearful  giant.  What  does  he  do  ?  Run  away  1  No, 
he  has  but  time  to  catch  up  his  sword,  and,  trembling 
in  every  limb,  he  goes  on  to  meet  the  giant ;  and  that 
is  the  thing  that  every  Christian  man  must  do.  I  can- 
not put  it  too  strongly ;  it  is  impossible.  There  is  no 
escape  from  it  If  death  itself  lies  before  us,  and  we 
know  it,  there  is  nothing  to  be  said ;  it  is  all  to  be 
done,  and  then  there  is  no  loss  ;  everything  else  is  all 
lost  unto  God.  Look  at  our  Lord.  He  gave  his  life 
to  do  the  will  of  his  Father,  and  on  he  went  and  did 
it.  Do  you  think  it  was  easy  for  him— easier  for  him 
than  it  would  have  been  for  us  9    Ah !  the  greater  the 


310  TRUE    GREATNESS. 

man  the  more  delicate  and  tender  his  nature,  and  the 
more  he  shrinks  from  the  opposition  even  of  his  fellow- 
men,  because  he  loves  them.  It  was  a  terrible  thing 
for  Christ.  Even  now  and  then,  even  in  the  little 
touches  that  come  to  us  in  the  scanty  story  (though 
enough)  this  breaks  out.  We  are  told  by  John  that 
at  the  Last  Supper  "  He  was  troubled  in  spirit,  and 
testified."  And  then  how  he  tries  to  comfort  himself 
as  soon  as  Judas  has  gone  out  to  do  the  thing  which 
was  to  finish  his  great  work  :  ''  Now  is  the  Son  of 
Man  glorified,  and  God  is  glorified  in  him.  If  God 
be  glorified  in  him,  God  shall  also  glorify  him  in 
himself."  Then  he  adds, — just  gathering  up  his 
strength, — "  I  shall  straightway  glorify  him."  This 
was  said  to  his  disciples,  but  I  seem  to  see  in  it  that 
some  of  it  was  said  for  himself.  This  is  the  grand 
obedience  !  Oh,  friends,  this  is  a  hard  lesson  to  learn. 
We  find  every  day  that  it  is  a  hard  thing  to  teach. 
We  are  continually  grumbling  because  we  cannot  get 
the  people  about  us,  our  servants,  our  tradespeople,  or 
whoever  they  may  be,  to  do  just  what  we  tell  them. 
It  makes  half  the  misery  in  the  world  because  they  will 
have  something  of  their  own  in  it  against  what  they 
are  told.  But  are  we  not  always  doing  the  same  thing  t 
and  ought  we  not  to  learn  something  of  forgiveness  for 
them,  and  very  much  from  the  fact  that  we  are  just  in 
the  same  position  1  We  only  recognize  in  part  that 
we  are  put  here  in  this  world  precisely  to  learn  to 
be  obedient.  He  who  is  our  Lord  and  our  God 
went  on  being  obedient  all  the  time,  and  was 
obedient  always ;  and  I  say  it  is  as  divine  for  us  to 


TRUE    GREATNESS.  311 

obey  as  it  is  for  God  to  rule.  As  I  have  said  already, 
Grod  is  ministering  the  whole  time.  I^ow,  do  you 
want  to  know  how  to  minister  ?  Begin  by  obeying. 
Obey  every  one  who  has  a  right  to  command  you  ;  but 
above  all,  look  to  what  our  Lord  has  said,  and  find  out 
what  he  wants  you  to  do  out  of  what  he  left  behind, 
and  try  whether  obedience  to  that  will  not  give  a  con- 
sciousness of  use,  of  ministering,  of  being  a  part  of 
the  grand  scheme  and  way  of  God  in  this  world.  In 
fact,  take  your  place  in  it  as  a  vital  portion  of  the 
divine  kingdom,  or— to  use  a  better  figure  than  that 
— a  \dtal  portion  of  the  Godhead.  Try  it,  and  see 
whether  obedience  is  not  salvation ;  whether  service 
is  not  dignity  ;  whether  you  will  not  feel  in  yourselves 
that  you  have  begun  to  be  cleansed  from  your  plague 
when  you  begin  to  say,  "  I  will  seek  no  more  to  be 
above  my  fellows,  but  I  will  seek  to  minister  to  them, 
doing  my  work  in  God's  name  for  them." 

"  Who  sweeps  a  room  as  for  Thy  law. 
Makes  that  and  the  action  fine." 

Both  the  room  and  the  action  are  good  when  done  for 
God's  sake.  That  is  dear  old  George  Herbert's  way  of 
saying  the  same  truth,  for  every  man  has  his  own 
way  of  saying  it.  The  gift  of  the  Spirit  of  God  to 
make  you  think  as  God  thinks,  feel  as  God  feels,  judge 
as  God  judges,  is  just  the  one  thing  that  is  promised.  I 
do  not  know  anything  else  that  is  promised  positively 
but  that,  and  who  dares  pray  for  anything  else  with 
perfect  confidence?  God  wiU  not  give  us  what  we 
pray  for  except  it  be  good  for  us,  but  that  is  one 


312 


TEUE   GEEATNEBS. 


thing  that  we  nmst  have  or  perish.  Therefore,  let  ns 
pray  for  that,  and  with  the  name  of  God  dwelling  in 
us — if  this  is  not  true,  the  whole  world  is  a  heap  of 
ruins — ^let  us  go  forth  and  do  this  service  of  God  in 
ministering  to  our  fellows,  and  so  helping  him  in 
his  work  of  upholding,  and  glorifying  and  saving  all 


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